>>33896551

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>>33896551
Wait shit.

I just thought of something.

Did Cellmate eat the imposter weed?

What if you don't stay asleep when you go to the dream world?

What if your mundane body still moves around and you don't remember it.


Uh. shit.

>>33896551
>[ ]Focus on which Cellmate is 'real'
They don't have access to our Values Adjuster without the Gym Key. We can punch them if they get too close.

>>33896551
[ ]Focus on which Cellmate is 'real'

To elaborate:

We could ask what the last thing we said to him was. What we look like. What color is his hair. And where is he now? Did he eat the thing we gave him?

>>33896640
>>33896764
>>33896832

You stare out at the Overseers and the Housemate for a moment before slowly shutting the door and throwing a whole bunch of rubble against it to keep it shut.
You can deal with that later.

You focus your attention on the Laptop as you type out an answer.

+What do I look like?+

-wut-
-what is this-
-the fucking inquisition or something-
-also-
-you are pale, dark-haired and glowy-

You look back at the Cellmate with you now, still hunched over the keycard scanner.

+What colour is your hair?+

-red-
-seriously-
-what is wrong-
-is something up-

+Where are you now?+

-in my cell-
-waiting for you-
-come on-

+What was the last thing I said to you?+

-what the fuck-
-what are these questions even about?-
-i don't remember-
-why do you care-

+Did you eat the thing I gave you?+

-no-

The door starts shaking as something slams against it. Your makeshift blockade won't survive another hit. The noise is enough to make the Cellmate look up.
"Alright, what the hell is going out there? Also I'm done."

The Storage door pops open, revealing a pitch-black room beyond.

>>33897013
"Overseers. Uh... help me punch them? You got high Strength Value right?"

Well this could just be an Immoral Overseer online trying to lure us back to Hi-Sec. Maybe.

>>33897013
Ask flesh-Cellmate if he still has that thing we gave him before we woke up.

Just tell him to hold on to it if he asks why.

>>33897013
Did we grab a flashlight?

>>33897145

"Overseers. Uh... help me p-punch them? You got high Strength Value right?"

"I don't know what any of those words mean but I am feeling pretty strong."
He walks closer to you and holds his fists up theatrically.
"Just uh, you first."

>>33897176

"B-by the way, do you still have that thing I gave you before I woke up?"

"This?"
He pulls out the leaf of imposter weed.

"J-just hold onto it."

The door to the Entrance Hall flies open, rubble scattering everywhere. Your Housemate comes flying through the opening and lands at your feet.

The two Overseers advance.

>>33897266
You don't have a flashlight on you right now but you don't think it'll be a problem since all the crystal threading through your skin casts light plenty fine these days.

>>33897013
Tell him to get over here and help fight. During the fight, make sure we keep him in our field of view. Don't shoot the laser yet unless it's looking like we're going to lose.

Try to keep Housemate in view during the fight too. That's of lower priority though.

This is SCREAMING trap. I just don't know from where.

>>33897280
D-Don't worry about the puppet guy. It's...clobbering time.

Or you would say that if you had any of Cellmate's pop cultural knowledge.

>>33897280
"You first"

Trap senses tingling. Let them advance, don't let him flank you.

>>33897344
>"You first"
Yeah.

Flank the Overseers. Get them between you and Cellmate.

>>33897280
Engage the overseers in a gentlemanly round of fisticuffs.

>>33897364
>Get them between you and Cellmate
This is a good idea.

>>33897430
Both strategically for fighting the enemy and for not trusting your ally.

Now we just have to, somehow, convince him to escort Housemate back to our bedroom, and inspect both their Values from the Control Room.

Just tell him to trust us. (The irony.)

You jump to the side, putting the Overseers between you and the Cellmate at least a little. You don't know who to trust! The Housemate crawls after you, trying to take shelter behind you.

The Overseers split up, the one with the Doorwheel hurling itself at the Cellmate! The Cellmate is far stronger than the Overseer but he is hopelessly slow and cannot react in time before the robot pushes him back through the doorway they just came in through. The Overseer's Doorwheel spins as this happens, changing the location of the doorway to your Bedroom just before the Cellmate falls through it.
The door slams shut.

The other Overseer is moving towards you cautiously, moustache bristling. You don't have much room to maneuver in this small space so his punches strike though, pummelling you around the head and chest.

Energy Value: 80

Energy Value: 77

It barely hurts you at all, you're way too tough! You grin and are about to reply in kind when the Housemate grabs you from behind! You're strong enough to shrug it off instantly but it still knocks you off-balance.

As you struggle, the Overseer in front of you holds a monocle to his glass eye where an ominous blue glow begins to charge. The Overseer with the Doorwheel crosses the room and is charging you to keep you occupied. The Housemate is attempting to grapple you again.

>>33897611
Steal, or short of that, punch that monocle away!

Or toss one Overseer at the other.

>>33897611
Punch him in the face. Not in the monocle, somewhere else, but in the face. Knock his head off like you did the Immoral.

Then brace for the other overseer, roll with his tackle, and crush his head against the ground.

Then destroy housemate with fisticuffs.

>>33897718
No, not housemate!

He's too mysterious and cowardly.

>>33897611
Pivot, getting behind Housemate, and shove him as hard as we can against the overseer. Put them between us and the third overseer, and either punch or curb stomp them depending on if they fell or not.

You lunge forward and punch the Overseer with the monocle right in his stupid face! His head goes flying off and ricochets around the room spraying blue beams everywhere.

The Housemate latches onto your back but you let the momentum of the punch spin you around so that your back, and thus the Housemate, is facing the Overseer charging you.
The robot smashes into the both of you but with the Housemate to act as a crumple zone and your extraordinary Toughosity Value, you are completely unharmed.

You spin back around so you can face the remaining Overseer, the Housemate falling from your back as you do so. The Housemate's appearance flickers and changes like a bad television set for a few moments before falling apart to reveal a thoroughly crumpled Overseer.

>>33897923
Harvest all their batteries. Take the monocle. Look in storage.

>>33897923
I was wondering what the third Overseer was doing off somewhere else.

Welp

Yeah take all their batteries out. And plunder those two hats they took from you.

And the miniature Doorwheel!

Then illuminate the storage room with laptop screen.


...I'd like to rush to Control Room to check "Cellmate's" objective and subjective Values, but he's probably on his way back already.

>>33897978
Still need to kill the last overseer.

He's probably pretty screwed up if his impact wiped out Housemate. Take him down, then investigate Storage.

Where's our gun?

>>33898063
I think if it took down the hologram that means he's no longer functional.

>>33898130
Housemate isn't functional. Tackle-bot still is.

>>33897923
Once all the robots are down, take their batteries, hats, and weapons. Put the monocle in Hat Slot. Don't let Cellmate know we have it.

You raise your Laser Rifle and point it at the remaining Overseer who stops dead in their tracks.
"S-surrender and I'll show mercy."

The Overseer drops his portable Doorwheel and slowly kneels down, both hands placed flat upon the ground in a gesture of supplication. You kick his head off and laugh.

You start to disassemble all three Overseer corpses, going through their innards and grabbing anything that catches your eye. From the monocle'd Overseer you grab the monocle, a large tube of Morph Concrete, his batteries and his hat. From the Overseer that had disguised itself as the Housemate you grab his batteries, one of the Security Anklets that had been on you once before and the hat that he'd been hiding in his chest compartment. From the last Overseer you grab his batteries and the portable Doorwheel.

You look over your new stash. The three batteries are just like the ones you grabbed from that dead Overseer in the bathroom days and days ago. Flat metal circles.
The tube of Morph Concrete seems to excrete a liquid form of the white plastic that comprises much of your cell. The 'seers probably used it for repairs while you were asleep. The monocle doesn't seem to do anything when you wear it which is a little disappointing.
The miniature Doorwheel seems to be a device which you can latch onto any door and make it open to a location of your choice. It is able to select any real-world location you have been so far!
And of course you also wear the two hats and create the perilous Sextuple Hatstack.This thing has so much storage space now, you don't even know.

1/2

>>33898436
>The Overseer drops his portable Doorwheel and slowly kneels down, both hands placed flat upon the ground in a gesture of supplication. You kick his head off and laugh.
And this is with Sin Value of 10?

Are we sure someone didn't raise it when we weren't looking.

>>33898436

2/2

Inventory
Clothes: Pyjamas, Overseer-grade Hat, Overseer-grade Hat, Overseer-grade Hat, Overseer-grade Hat, Overseer-grade Hat, Overseer-grade Hat.
Right Hand: Laptop w/Extension Cord
Left Hand: Laser Rifle (Charged enough for one shot)
Pockets: Garden Key, Gym Key, Magician Key, Silver Key, Black Key, Bronze Key, Gray Key
Hatstack: Overseer Monocle, Overseer Battery, Overseer Battery, Overseer Battery, Portable Doorwheel, Morph Concrete

With that stash taken care of, you aim your Laptop into the Storage Room. The chatter claiming to be the Cellmate has stopped messaging you.

The Storage room is much like the Lab in that it is a messy pile of junk! Assorted paraphernalia litter the floor. Most of the space is taken up by a large man-sized tube. Suspended within is a crystal Monolith Being, identical to those that you see when you absorb one of the Arcana. There's a huge gaping hole in its chest where something has been removed.
Attached to the side of the tube is a yellow sticky note. Someone has written 'Reminder: Logs are recorded in 2874984, 66699910, 433790 and 3141592.'

You're about to go in when you suddenly get a foot shorter. Someone is messing with your Adjuster.

...Okay so now that we know hologram disguises are a thing.

The Fake Cellmate IMing us is probably a disguised Immoral Overseer who was watching Hi-Sec the whole time.

hell maybe it's the one we bopped its head off, somehow.

>>33898669
Dammit Cellmate!

Use Doorwheel to head straight to the Gym.

>>33898669
>There's a huge gaping hole in its chest where something has been removed.
I wonder if that's us.

>>33898710
Wait scratch that.

Use Doorwheel to head straight to the Control Room!

Then we can see who's doing it and mess with *their* Values.

>>33898677
Or the guy following us is an Immoral who holo'd up...

But our guy was shrunk by the Values Adjustor tied to him...

>>33898834
You're assuming this is the same Cellmate as the one we met while we were dreaming.

We woke up and then returned to Hi-Sec between then and now.

>>33898783
Yes. We should mess with them before they make us tiny.

>>33898669
It's cellmate! Doorwheel to the gym and tell him to stop.

Oh, not again. You aren't going to let someone Values Adjust you into submission again. You quickly introspect to make sure everything is still mostly as it should be.

Name Value: ?????
Gender Value: Indeterminate
Age Value: 99
Hunger Value: 0
Energy Value: 65
Strength Value: 100
Toughosity Value: 100
Quickness Value: 100
Sin Value: 80
Dream Value: 10

You lock your new toy into the Storage door and spin it before opening it once again, revealing it to now lead into the Control Room. You detach the 'wheel and step through.

Looking through the security monitors, you spy the Cellmate sitting around in the Gym inspecting the Values Adjuster.

>>33898909
>Sin Value: 80
That must have been raised by him then and we never noticed.

Examine his Objective and Subjective Values.

>>33898909
So he adjust our sin and gender?

>>33898909
While we have the chance, examine his Subjective values. Then doorwheel and and get him to knock it off.

This isn't malice. If he was out to get us he could have. I'm ruling him legit; it's the IM bot that's evil.

>>33898967
Yeah. I concluded it was a part of the Overseers' shadowruns just like fake Housemate since he stopped IMing at all.

Real Cellmate would surely still go 'pls respond'.

>>33898909
Wait, how did he get inside the Gym?

The Overseers didn't have a master key on them so they couldn't have left it unlocked. Did we forget to lock it?

>>33898909
Oh, and examine Housemate's various Values too.

Want to be sure he didn't get back to his sinful ways while we weren't looking.

>>33898909
Get his objective and subjective values.

>>33899046
No, we locked it. Cellmate is a hacker, remember? He's probably picked locks too.

>>33899107
I don't think so. He's the Hacker. They have mostly non-electronic locks around here just for that reason I think.

>>33899066
Check the kitchen while we're here. See if that was the real Housemate.

>>33899140
>See if that was the real Housemate
Uh.

We know it was an illusion. And now all four overseers are accounted for and trashed.

Unless you think Housemate has been an Overseer in a hologram all along?

>>33899173
>Unless you think Housemate has been an Overseer in a hologram all along?
Yes, this is what I'd like to learn.

>>33898966
It looks like it!

>>33899046
You neglected to lock it in your most recent visit, such was your haste to escape.

>>33899079
>>33899066
>>33898967

You focus the Control Room Values Adjuster on him as he pokes your Dream Value down to 2 and then changes you back to female. It doesn't look like he even knows what column corresponds to what, he's just messing around!

You also see the Housemate still sitting in the Kitchen like normal. You check his Values and they remain the same as they were last time. Sin Value is still at 0.

You then aim back at the Cellmate before he does any more foolishness.

Objective Values:
Name Value: ?????
Gender Value: Male
Age Value: 18
Hunger Value: 48
Energy Value: 60
Strength Value: 100
Toughosity Value: 43
Quickness Value: 19
Sin Value: 57
Dream Value: 24
Height Value: 51

Subjective Values
Life Value: 100
Paternal Value: 0
Romantic Value: 50
Sentimental Value: 20

Your curiousity satisfied, you decide it's time for you tell him to cut it out. You Doorwheel straight down to the Gym.
"W-what do you think you're doing?"

He jumps away from the Adjuster in surprise.
"Nothing. You can't prove anything. I wasn't even there at the time."

>>33899303
Set our G back to 1. Now bring him to the Rumpus Room and play those logs!

Try the jukebox, then the TV.

>>33899303
Tell him there's cameras in this room.

>>33899377
Why set G to 1? The prisoner is more female I think.

>>33899377
This, but bump our height back to normal too.

>>33899303
>Set sin to 20

Keep gender at 2.

>>33899412
I think otherwise, but it's really it's just fun to mess with the Cellmate.

>>33899412
>The prisoner is more female I think
This. I can never remember what the values are; let's all just say Male/Female/Inderminate.

>>33899303
Explain to him what Values Adjusters are. Drag his VA from Hi-Sec to this room, and lock it properly this time. Then go play those logs on the Jukebox.

>>33899303
Go back to Male or Indeterminate to fuck with him.

>>33899503
If we want to fuck with him, go to his VA and make him female.

As far as an actual plan goes, we have neutralized every robot we've yet encountered except the bartender. I don't think we can trust it. Go to the bar and kill him.

>>33899559
>Killing the bartender

Who's gonna mix our drinks? You think the Cellmate can do that?

>>33899559
No, let's not kill the bartender. We can drink ourselves into the dream world after learning the horrible secrets behind our existence.

>>33899559
>every robot we've yet encountered
Except the Immoral who knocked on our door.

The only new lead we have is crystal man. Go listen to those logs.

>>33899658
What if that crystal we found in the lab is his heart? Maybe we should try fitting it into the hole.

>>33899713
Are you sure you want to do that when you don't know his position on matters, whether he be friend or foe or even capable of helping?

>>33899741
What frightens me is that he might be someone who collected all the Arcana. Getting them all is an end condition, but what kind of end?

>>33899303
Get dressed in something that has pockets. Like cargo pants.

(Sorry for the delay, I was tending to something)

"I was w-watching from the Control Room, moron."
You grab him and drag him away from the machine while you set your Height Value back to two meters. You ponder doing something with your Gender Value but the two sides of your brain seem to be equally matched on that issue. You set your Sin Value back to 20 and immediately let go of the Cellmate, blusing furiously.
"D-don't touch this ever again!"

"I was only curious, come on. You were messing with mine."

"I c-could have messed with yours a lot more than I did!"

You set the Doorwheel to the Lab and push him through it so you can grab the codes. You're about to go back to the Rumpus Room to play them when the Cellmate points out that the Lab has a jukebox of its own.
"Oh."

You punch in the first code (2874984) and the Jukebox crackles to life. The Cellmate is going through the various Overseer remnants, frowning.

The recording seems to be mostly static but just as you're ready to try a different code a female voice crackles in. She sounds relatively young and clinically disinterested in the topic of her own words.

"...have begun to upgrade the Overseer bots with the new battery technology obtained from Subject-3. Should see a rapid increase in power efficiency and durability with the new crystal matrix but some problems have arose. The first batch of the new model have had a 70% malfunction rate. They continue functioning but they report possessing improper thoughts and a willingness to harm human life along with a cultish flagellant mindset. Contamination from the Subjects is unlikely and scrapping them would be a vast waste of resources and new battery systems so I propose that a proper use be found, suitable to their idiosyncrasies. Until then, they should be de-hatted and refitted with confinement protocols while experimentation is ongoing. The remaining 30% of the new models report no problems with their new systems and may be ready for further..."
1/2

>>33900131
Indeterminate is fine for gender. We're not really human anyway; we glow in the dark, our eyes are space, and we don't age.
Prisoner is female though

2/2

"...may be ready for further refitting with the new specialist systems. Under current circumstances...I deem this success rate acceptable. Aside from that small bug, Overseer production has been going smoothly. We should approach the capacity for a fully unmanned facility within another five weeks. A skeleton crew of human personnel will be able to supervise safely from Sat-5 which is already being prepared to house long-term visitors. We will require the maximum distance between living crew and the test subjects. For what good it may do. We have not yet been able to record a maximum range to the spatial fluctuations but the distance might be enough to lessen the effects. We have yet been unable to re-establish contact with Earth. As per protocols, a search ship should be already looking for us but I estimate around six weeks before arrival. End report."

The Jukebox goes silent. The Cellmate holds up what looks to be an internal computer from the wreckage of the Overseer impersonating the Housemate. Chatterspeak appears to be running on it.

"I don't know about this. We should just escape now. I don't want to hear this."
He looks scared but by what you do not know.

>>33900318
You are currently female right now, the Cellmate set you back right before you told him to knock it off.

>>33900379
Input the rest of the codes.

>>33900430
*shrug*. People ITQ pay too much attention to that.

We are in space. This is a satellite. Fuck.

TOO BAD.

We're gonna find out why we live on this damn yellow planet we see in our dreams and what our species is actually called.

>>33900379
Take the computer. We could give it to the bartender so he can communicate with us without morse code.

How long has it been since Cellmate saw humans around? I know that the dust made it look like 2 or 3 days when we first set foot outside the cell.

>>33900500
>. This is a satellite
Well, no.

They supervise from the satellite. Far away.

Unless the Entrance Hall is a portal to the satelite that contains the cafeteria.

>>33900379
We need to be very, VERY careful about that EXIT door. It might lead to vaccuum.

>>33900608
I doubt it. This facility is probably on the yellow planet and they just switched to fully unmanned.

>>33900379
Listen to code two.

>>33900379
>We should just escape now
"Escape to what?"


Experiment: stop breathing. Hold our breath. Do we need to breathe, or has crystal taken care of that too?

>>33900730
Yeah. Tell him there's only one door we haven't unlocked, and one door that's blocked by something huge and heavy from the other side entirely.

And there aren't any more keys that we can find. Though we have this Gray Key that we don't know what it opens.

I think we tried the Gray Key on the dream closet door already, right.

>>33900379

"Too b-bad."

Play the rest, keep an eye on him.

That was all just one recording, right? There were two.

"Too b-bad."

You input the next code (66699910). It's the same female voice but it sounds much less drained. She sounds happy, even excited.

“Caroline Sperling, second-in-command of Research Ops of the Junk-class Explorer Malpractice Valentine. I have decided to keep this log to report our findings as it is starting to look like we may not be going home for some time. It all started last week during a routine investigation of the E99 Formation, a nearby nebula with a remarkably high density of stars around it. Prof wanted to take a look at it to help prove his dumb ‘Mother Nebulae’ theory, that only a small percentage of nebulae in the known universe are responsible for the vast majority of star-birth. I have my doubts but what do lowly grad-students even know anyway? None of that matters. We had only just began when Psy-Ops started raising a ruckus about some sort of ‘mental signature’ or some other rubbish. We figured that it was probably just a glitch reading, just like all of the rest of Psy-Ops had been so far but still...imagine if we had found intelligent life! We’d be famous! Can’t exactly say no.”

A brief pause.

“So we ended up on this ugly dirtball, E99/P-49932. Rogue planet drifting in the nebula with no home system at all, absolutely uninhabited. Prof was ready to space the entire Psy-Ops department until we found the crystal formation. It wasn’t too large, I’d say only the size of the Valentine itself? Whatever. Psy-Ops went absolutely nuts over and Engineering wasn’t much better. It’s not my field but apparently they were not only a naturally psionic substance but they could be potentially used as the material for all sorts of junk. All kind of talk about focussing lenses and lasers. And Psy-Ops were blathering about how some kind of spatial field fluctuating around them. Can’t recall it all too well, not off the top of my head anyway. As long as they didn’t touch my robots it didn’t matter."
1/2

>>33901272
They found a planet, but got stranded and can't make it back. They're shacked up in a satellite and waiting for help. Why do they need us?

>>33901272
2/2

" We threw a few sats into orbit and planted the ship into groundpounder mode and started mining. The Prof was ecstatic. And then the dreams started. At first it was only the Psy-Ops folk but it started spreading to the rest of us like..like a virus. None of us were able to divine anything from them except maybe being a side-effect of the psionic frequency that the crystals were always vibrating at. Only now, looking back, I could tell they were performing recon. Hunting for information. The first imposter showed up two days later.”

A long pause.

“A humanoid puppet made of crystals. Psy-Ops said it contained a near-perfect simulacra of a human mind, absorbed from us. Which was...absolutely terrifying. It wasn’t alone either. Devoured human thoughts had spread throughout the entire crystal formation. And so that’s when we realised our mistake. The whole damn thing was alive!"

Another pause.

"The guards got jumpy and shot it full of holes. It wasn't able to talk anyway. But even the corpse was plenty of us to study. We held a meeting right away on what to do with this. You'd think the knowledge that these things were alive would change anything. Not to the Prof. Especially not when Psy-Ops unveiled their new project. A way of manipulating the crystal's spatial fields to induce changes to well...anything that could fall within it. None of us believed them at first but they had already prepared a very basic prototype. This was technology to tread upon the toes of God. We held a vote and of course we all agreed to keep up the mining. Just common sense. And when I woke up the next morning none of our engines worked anymore. Our hyperspatial comms tether had been severed. There was panic in the crew. We'd gone too far, we had to placate the crystals. But the Prof had a plan. I'm sort of on the sidelines of everything here.We should enact it in a few hours, maybe I'll get to watch. Until then, I'll keep up these diaries."

>>33901572
3/2

"Maybe I can get everyone else to as well and we can shuttle them back home since we can't send reports back across the tether? I'll ask around."

The Jukebox recording ends. You enter the third code.

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70 KB JPG

>>33901572
>>33901572
>We'd gone too far, we had to placate the crystals. But the Prof had a plan

>Prof had a plan

I think our decision to not crystal up all the way was a very good one.

>>33901604

It's Caroline again. She sounds tired but still enthused.

"We're about to start mass Overseer production. We need them to watch over the Subjects. It's apparently imperative that we isolate them. The Prof says giving them further contact with human minds would be bad. He neglected to explain the specifics."

A sigh.

"I don't get it. They look just like us. They even think like us. I talked to Subject-1 yesterday and I couldn't tell the difference between it and a human child. They even perceived the universe through humanlike symbology. Subject-1 in particular has latched onto to the idea of the Tarot, no doubt stolen from our subconscious. To continue the isolation protocol, Overview Control reset Subject-1's Mnemonic Value using one of the machines that we'd mined out of its head. It just makes me uneasy. Like...this is probably some sort of war-crime or something right? But we can't release them now, it's much too late. The Prof's plan worked perfectly. We identified the six forming consciousnesses within the crystal lifeforms and used Psy-Ops to invite them to talk our differences out. They used imposter bodies like the first had but they looked almost entirely human. They were obviously learning much too fast. I think this helped us make the decision to enact the plan. When they came to us as the first had, to naively ask us to stop mining, we broke their bodies and confined them to special cells. With the nascent minds within the formation all trapped, we were able to mine the crystals to depletion easily. So...yeah. We can't free them now. Not after that. That would be bad."

>>33901860
What? No it isn't.

It's how you escape. Getting in tune with your true self.

The crystals tried to mimic human form and communicate and then got BTFO by douchebag miners.

>>33901860
The fuck it was. These miners have raped our home. We're our species' hope for talking to them and they did... this to us.

Break down the last locked door. Do whatever it takes. We have two people here with 100 strength and a burning need for justice.

>>33901860
Why did you ever think that?

>>33902016
You can't. It leads to the dream world in all likelihood, and thus the Monolith.

After this it's time to get drunk and see how he likes the dream world.

>>33902016
Bring both our Value Adjusters with us, as well as some Imposter Weeds.

>"...have begun to upgrade the Overseer bots with the new battery technology obtained from Subject-3
They HARVESTED the others. Their timeline was unmanned in 5 weeks and rescue in 6. Their ship will be arriving very soon. We have that long to seek JUSTICE!

>>33901925
"So... that definitely happened and is not science fiction."

"Did I mention my prison has a Bar now?"

>>33901925
You enter the last code. You can barely hear her voice in this one. She sounds noticeably older than even the first recording you tried.

"The Professor is dead. So is the entirety of Psy-Ops. Along with roughly...over half of our human population. Even the ones we'd already moved up to the sat. A few of the Overseers as well. I don't understand it."

A shudder.

"It was Subject-1. It did something with the stupid mannequin we gave it. You know in zoos where they give lemurs a stuffed lemur to act as company or whatever? It was much the same principle. One of the Psy-Ops started reporting some sort of bad mojo or whatever their ludicrous 'science' considers jargon from Subject-1's mannequin. Said Subject-1 was way too afraid of it, was subconsciously dumping everything awful in its mind into it. And with each Subject basically being a nascent god at this point, we had to take it seriously. And I mean 'god' quite literally. The psionic field we first recorded from the crystals was nothing but a by-product of the spatial manipulation they were truly capable of. There's no real limit, apparently. Makes me wonder how many local stars were really condensed in this nebula and how many were just blindly...thought into existence. Are these demons in every other 'Mother Nebulae' too? Are they our progenitors? I doubt it. Prof's nebula theory was never proven, after all. Regardless of the metaphysics, it has become apparent what has happened. Subject-1's inner turmoil with the mannequin that was meant to comfort it reached breaking point and for a brief moment it subconsciously manifested it's 'Adjuster Field'. And now nearly everyone's dead. Worse, other things have changed. Strange plants have started to grow everywhere. Numbers and codes are popping up all over the place as if the universe is trying to align to make escape possible. Some sort of crystal extrusion has grown up around the exit. We can't get out. It wants us to die. We can't get out."

1/2

>>33901925
"So, I started being able to escape because someone planted these weird green plants in my Garden, and also I got this weird code in the food chute that led to a recording of my own voice in the Jukebox. Someone's helping us. Who?"

>>33902253
We're subject 1. We're the one with the Tarot affiliation and the fear of Housemate. When he "woke up", it was us limit breaking and killing them.

The door is being blocked, probably by the monolith in the dream world.

>>33901925
>We identified the six forming consciousnesses within the crystal lifeforms and used Psy-Ops to invite them to talk our differences out. They used imposter bodies like the first had but they looked almost entirely human.
Wait.
>six
...There are only five Cells.

Was Hi-Sec always occupied?

>>33902253

"I've got crews working to pull out the plants wherever we can find them. God only knows what they do. We have to keep the Dream Values down. I'm nearly 100% sure that is what is related to the power spikes. The higher it is, the greater the Subject's ability to subconsciously influence the reality around it. That's just a stopgap though. I think I'm in charge now. I've begun cycling in Overseers with the improved batteries, they seem more resistant to Subject-1's blind homicides. We can't let them live anymore. The Prof didn't want them to die, he had the theory that they would just rehouse in other crystals and thus be free. Well the Prof isn't in charge anymore, he's DEAD. I've sent down the orders to euthanize the Subjects. Doing this revealed that Subject-6 was listening in to our communications somehow. Fortunately out of all them, Subject-6 is the least powerful. It was easily subdued. As I speak, crews should be destroying Subjects 2-5. I told them to save Subject-1 to last, any more of its outbursts could interrupt the process. Subject-1 is not itself a high priority anymore, it seems to have shattered itself in its last tantrum. As soon as Subject-1 is peacefully destroyed and I know they're gone for good, I'm blasting down that damn crystal in the door. The search shuttle should be here in a few days and I'll be damned if I'm ever going to see this shitty planet again."

>>33902059
>Their timeline was unmanned in 5 weeks and rescue in 6. Their ship will be arriving very soon.
Now that it turns out they all died here, though no bodies remain, it seems like it might not be at the 5 week unmanned milestone actually.

Besides, when the ships come, we can pretend to be human and check out this "Earth" place.

>>33902451
>we can pretend to be human
That'll work really well with our glowing skin.

>>33902449

"Wow that was a lot of time to hear a bunch of bullshit. I don't believe any of it."
The Cellmate folds his arms. He's trembling though.

As for you...you don't know what to think. It'd be a lie to say that you didn't suspect something like this.

"Come on, let's go."

The Cellmate rouses you from your introspection. You reach over and crush the Jukebox with one hand.
"O-okay."

>>33902507
On a completely unrelated note. Let's go to the Bar. Suddenly drinking seems like a good idea to suggest.

We may want to keep our Sin Value low though.

>>33902507
Why did we do that?

Let's see if we can get the last door open. If not, let's introduce Subject 6 to the dream world.

>>33902507
Let's probe barkeep for more information.

>>33902555
Hope he has a morsecode translator.

>>33902571
We have the chatterspeak computer we can give him.

>>33902592
He has his own laptop

>>33902602
No, the bartender. We can give it to him so he can talk to us without morse.

>>33902545

You take out your portable Doorwheel for another spin, setting the door to the Control Room. Once again you try to open the EXIT door only to find it blocked off. Again.

You know what, screw opening it.

You and the Cellmate work together to just pull the door off its hinges. Beyond it is the same Crystal Monolith that was in your dream. And like that same Crystal Monolith, it refuses to be budged.
It does tremor away when the Cellmate comes close to it however. Looking confused, he reaches into his shirt and pulls out his crystal pendant and starts to swing it around.
"I-I forgot you had that."

The Monolith is definitely reacting to the lesser crystal but not enough to get it to move!

>>33902541
>>33902571

You open the door into the Bar instead and drag the Cellmate through. Man, this portable Doorwheel really makes shit convenient!

The Immoral Overseer barkeep is still there. He pours both of you a drink.

Sin Value: 25
Dream Value: 20
Energy Value: 35

You pass the robot your laptop. He seems to understand, opening up a Word doc and tapping something out.

*Why*

He passes it back to you.

>>33902677
>Exit door
No, the padlock. We can break it off.

>>33902677
I don't know.

When did the last human die?

Where did all the human bodies go?

How long until the shuttle gets here now?

>>33902677
>why
Why what?

Also, at some point try Cellmate's pendant with the crystal man in the lab's Storage.

>>33902677
"Why not?"

>>33902707

+When did the last human die?+

*When you woke up*

+Where did all of the human bodies go?+

*Gone. No trace.*

+How long until the shuttle gets here now?+

*I was not informed.*

You pause for a moment.

+Why what?+

*Why give me this?*

+I just want to talk!+

>>33902704

You throw your hands up and go back to the Control Room. You snap the padlock off easily only to find out that it wasn't actually locked. What.
Could you have opened this door whenever you felt like it, had you not been trying to unlock a locked padlock? That's absolute bullshit.

You go in anyway.

The door opens to a small flight of stairs that lead up to a room situated directly above the Control Room. It is almost identical save that the monitor bank isn't watching any of the usual Cells. It is watching the Hi-Sec Cell though the switch can cycle through all of the usual Cells in addition.
A small Values Adjuster sits next to the monitors and at the edge of the terminal is a large dial reading 'Mnemonic Value'. It appears to be targeting nothing and is set at 100.

>>33902892
Set it to 50

>>33902892
>A small Values Adjuster sits next to the monitors and at the edge of the terminal is a large dial reading 'Mnemonic Value'. It appears to be targeting nothing and is set at 100.
Oh.

We don't want to lower that, that'll make us forget probably.

>To continue the isolation protocol, Overview Control reset Subject-1's Mnemonic Value using one of the machines that we'd mined out of its head.

It can't go higher than 100, right? If it can... we should raise it.

>>33902944
>>33902942

You are feeling conflicted on what to do with it. You can confirm that it cannot go higher than 100 however.

>>33902892
Remove one point from it and see what happens. Regardless, put that point back and see what happens then.

>>33902988
Leave it alone.

Or, just to see what happens, see what adjusting it to 99 does.

Hopefully it'll just hilariously remove the memory of finding this room.

>>33902993
If it's bad, one point won't do much damage. If it's good, we'll know to take more.

>>33902892
>You throw your hands up and go back to the Control Room.
Wait is ginger still following us or is he drinking himself to oblivion?

You set it back by one. Nothing happens. Ah, right. It's not targeting anything right now!

>>33903038
Target something inanimate. If no effect, target the Bartender.

>>33903038
Examine Cellmate's Mnemonic Value.

...is he still in the Bar?

>>33903038
Target ourselves. Do not modify, just see.

>>33903084
>Target ourselves
You obviously can't.

It only views the Cells and Hi-Sec.

>>33903050
>>33903054

The Cellmate is still in the bar. You can either target him, the Immoral Overseer or both.

While they are targeted they are both valid targets for the Values Adjuster here too.

>>33903139
Well yeah. So examine their current mnemonic values. We gotta know what they are before we go changing em.

Open the Doorwheel to the Bar to get his consent first.

>>33903139
Look at Cellmate's values. Don't change. Then look at Bartender's. Go to the bar, tell the Bartender something inane, go back, target, reduce by one, and talk to him again. See if he remembers the inane thing.

File: bonerwellunderstood.gif (789 KB, 444x272)

789 KB GIF

>>33903183
SCIENCE!

They both seem to be at maximum Mnemonic Value. Or so you think. The dial doesn't change when you target different things. Could '100' just be all of their current memories no matter how long those extend for?

You go back into the Bar and type into the laptop.
+I am the fairy princess+

*I do not understand*

You nod and go back and change the bartender's Mnemonic Value to 99 before going back and opening up a new doc.

+Do you remember it?+

*Why give me this?*

It seems that he doesn't remember you conversation at all. But going back to Overview Control, his Mnemonic Value is back at 100. Looks like that anything you take with this can't ever be regained.

>>33903251
It may be useful, but I want nothing to do with it right now.

While we're here, see Bartender's subjective values.

>>33903274

Life Value: 50
Parental Value: 0
Romantic Value: 0
Sentimental Value: 10

>>33903251
Oh. Alas.

Yeah what are Bartender's various Values of both varieties?

>>33903251
Discuss the situation with Cellmate. Try his crystal pendant in the hole that the crystal man has.

>>33903326
I'm hesitant to try that. It probably won't work but.

We should both start dreaming soon and see if he sees his own progress in the Dream Journal or anything.

...Oh wait we have to shrink ourselves to minimum size before we dream. And lower Sin Value to be safe.

He can be normal size though.

>>33903251
Go to the lab. Get the crystal.

I sorta thought maybe our jailers weren't even human at all.

Because what was with the purple plant children they gave us in the Garden? That doesn't sound like Earth plants.

>>33903350
I just want to try the crystal heart before sleeping.

Once we get ready to sleep, explain the plan to Cellmate and reduce our size. We'll go to the rainbow path, tiny us will walk the last road, and we'll go from there. Sleep on the values adjustor so we can make ourself big in case Cellmate bugs out and is useless.

Reduce sin to 20 so Justice doesn't hate us. She's not a priority, but may as well be a possibility.

>>33903440
Getting Justice before climbing the tiny string into the sky is sensible anyway.

More importantly we can check our prophecy notes to see what of the other six endings are closer.

>>33903324
The Immoral Overseer's Objective Values are as follows:

Age Value: 0
Strength Value: 60
Toughosity Value: 60
Quickness Value: 60
Sin Value: 100

>>33903326
>>33903374

"S-so, what do you think we should do?"

"Escape? I don't know why our goals have changed. I'm way too fucking sick of this place. I just want out. Maybe we can talk about what to do afterwards."

You lead the Cellmate back to the Storage room and direct him to hold his crystal pendant up to the Monolith Being in the tube. The crystal man floats closer but the glass wall of the tube is still separating the two of you. You're not sure if you want to break it just yet either, the liquid that's in there looks really nasty.

While you're in the Lab you grab the wild crystal growth. Pressing it to the Monolith Being has the same reaction but even stronger. Something still feels missing though. Both this creature and the crystal growth feel dead to you.

>>33903350
>>33903440
>>33903489

"Well what now? We're nearly free, I can feel it."

"There's just one more thing I w-want to show you first."

He raises his eyebrows but says nothing. Doorwheeling back to your cell you grab a handful of your plentiful imposter weed.
"Eat t-this."

"Fine. Let me just ...woah. What the fuck."

With that done, the two of you go into the Gym and you set the Cellmate's Height Value back to 1 before picking him up and plopping him on top of the Values Adjuster. You reduce yourself to an equal height but grab onto the top of the Adjuster first, so you end up dangling over the edge with one tiny hand holding onto the lip.

The Cellmate is already asleep. Maybe the imposter weed was a little too strong for him? You shrug and go to sleep yourself.

...

You wake up again on top of the Adjuster feeling rotten. That was an awful night's sleep. Much too hard, too angled to sleep properly on. You didn't dream at all! The Cellmate is still sleeping next to you.

>>33903614
>You didn't dream at all! The Cellmate is still sleeping next to you.
Oh what!

God dammit. Is there only room for one?

Start adjusting our Height Value back to normal.

>>33903614
While he's sleeping, go grab his Values Adjuster from Hi-Sec's basement and bring it into our Bedroom.

...What's in the basement spots for Cells 2 through 5, where the Values Adjuster should be?

>>33903614
Put our height value back to normal. Let Cellmate dream.

Your back feels fucked up and strained. That wasn't like sleeping your bed at all! You start the process of ratcheting your Height Value up bit by bit.
Once you're returned to your proper size you Doorwheel your way back into the Hi-Sec Basement and drag his Values Adjuster back into your Bedroom.

Since you're prancing around anyway, you might as well go sightseeing. You explore the other Low-Sec Cells but they've been emptied of everything. They don't even have Overseers. It's just as it was when you were there last time.

With just one little difference. Every single one of their Closets has an ajar wooden door in the back. Those weren't there when you last came here! The doors look identical to the Waking Door you found in the Cellmate's Closet.

>>33903848
Open one of them. Open all of them, in fact. If locked, break them.

>>33903889
>ajar
One of these days I'm going to learn how to read.

>>33903848
Ask barkeep if any of his brothers are still active.

>>33903848
Oh what.

Maybe we'll finally find a key to the Dream Closet now.

>>33903927
We know the one assigned to our own Closet is still alive. We never killed him.

>>33903927
If you're gonna talk to him, ask him how many Overseers and Immoral Overseers there still are. And what are all the different kinds of Duties?

>>33903963
These are good questions. Also ask whether the others will attack us on sight.

You Doorwheel yourself back to bar and give the Immoral Overseer the laptop again.

+How many of your brothers are still active+

*We sinners talk to each other through the INTERHUB. There are only three of us left now. Of our pure brethren, ten remain and all are dormant.*

+Three of you 'sinners' left? Where? On what duties?+

*Myself, one on Closet Duties and one in the tunnels below by the Scrapyard.*

+What do the doors do?+

*The doors in the Closet? My brother in your Closet reported a door appearing in there a few days ago. He travelled through it and found himself in a beautiful meadow by a forest. It was too wondrous for the likes of us so he eventually returned to his duties.*

>>33904094
Wait what.

Are all the Cells' Closets connected to each other?

Now, to explore the passageways. Maybe we'll even find Dream Cellmate.

>>33904094
Ask it about the Scrapyard. Where is the access point?

Then go through one of the doors.

>>33904094
Go through a door, try to find Cellmate in the dream.

>>33904131
>>33904137

+Wait what. Are all of the Closets connected to each other?+

*Yes. Was once used by the masters. Now it is the domain of only us as our sinless brothers refuse to enter such a flagrant display of garments.*

+What Scrapyard? Where is it?+

*The Scrapyard is where we go to die. It is down in the tunnel network. The closest entrance would be the trapdoor underneath the INTERHUB server.*

What.

You go back to one of the Low-Sec Closets and peek through. It seems to lead into the Dreamworld version of the Low-Sec Cell, an awful bloodbathed place that makes your gorge rise.

Looking into your own Closet, you find that you have a Dreaming Door in here too. How long has it been here? Well, it's been an awfully long time since you entered your Closet after all. You poke your head through it to find that it leads to the Peaceful Fairyland.

You're not sure which one you should enter.

>>33904222
Reduce Barkeep's Sin level to 60.

>>33904222
Go to the bloodbath. Let's take a look around.

>>33904222
Look in Hi-Sec for Cellmate's world. If one doesn't exist, look in cell number 6.

>>33904222
There was a trapdoor in the Control Room all along?

Fuck. Uh. Well the other Dream Cells is new. Let's see the remains of our brethren.

>>33904285
>cell number 6.
There never was a Cell 6. The INTERIOR door only lists 5.

I don't get it either.

>>33904305
(Cell 6 was upgraded to Hi-Security)

>>33904285
The Dreaming Door in the Hi-Sec Cell leads to the Dreamworld version of the Hi-Sec Bedroom. Since that lacks an exit you decide it would not be prudent to go in there just yet.

>>33904286
>>33904268

You enter the Dreaming Door of Cell 3. You have now entered the Dreamworld with your own physical body! That's...that's mildly interesting you suppose. You can't see what the difference is.

The Dreamworld Low-Sec Cells are like hideous bloodstained versions of their real world counterparts. There are no dreamers to sustain anything different. There's blood everywhere. It's not even grotesque at this point, it's just sort of silly. A bit overboard.

When you inspect the Dreamworld Low-Sec Kitchen you find a Housemate, similar but not quite identical to your own. It turns to look at you before getting up, moving in that jerky stop-motion way that your Housemate did during the...incidents.

>>33904445
But is there an eighth door to the Entrance Hall in the Dream Cell?

Tell Housemate 3 to stop or he's, uh... getting imagined out of existence.

>>33904486
>But is there an eighth door to the Entrance Hall in the Dream Cell?

Nope! They've been cordoned off.

>>33904445
We're in our real body. We can't handle death right now, and this is probably the ghost of our brother. It's probably murderous. Leave this place, explore our dream. Talk to Justice.

>>33904445
Try to lead the housemate outside of the dream world.

>>33904554
I wonder if we won't be able to get any of them if we're not dreaming ourselves.

Since we won't have the Dream Journal and stuff.

>>33904445
Say hello, tell it we're its sister. We're Number One. Don't let it get close; leave the cell if we have to.

We can probably fight it but let's not if we don't have to.

"H-hello. I think I'm your sister. Number One. Do you understand?"

It doesn't react to you at all but with your words, a big red 7 splashes across its face. It starts to slowly advance towards you. You back away.

"Hey! I'll...I'll i-imagine you out of existence if you don't stop."
You wish you could remember how you did that. You stretch out palm and make some magic noises but nothing happens.

The Housemate stops it's slow shuffle to lunge forward with lightning speed! But not fast enough. You jump around it's charge and grab it by the neck. You're stronger than it and it is helpless to break your grip.
Dark energy coils around the mannequin but it doesn't seem to do anything to you.

>>33904674
Don't kill it. Throw it to the ground and get out of the cell.

>>33904674
Drag it outside.

>>33904674
See what happens if you stick just one of its hands through the door in the closet to reality.

The decision is a close one but in the end you decide to see if you can take it with you. Maybe if you reduce it's Height Value a little you can make it a pet or something. An omnicidal maybe-the-embodied-imprint-of-your-sibling's-death pet. That could work out.

You drag it over to the Waking Door in the Closet and stick just one of its hands through. It doesn't dissolve or anything so you pull it all the way through into reality. Nothing changes, it seems to make it through the transition just fine!

...These things can invade reality. Wheee.

>>33904767
Oh boy.

Shove it in Gym 3 and bar the door with the bed.

Go check out its Objective and Subjective Values in the Control Room.

>>33904767
>...These things can invade reality.
Nope, nope, nope, all kinds of nope. Get out of there and slam the door. Wait for it, see if it comes out. If so, lock it in the gym.

>>33904783
>>33904797

You throw it back into the Dreamworld and shut the door behind it. But it's too late for that now. The Dark Housemate has learned of the Waking Door's existence and its mandate of pain and hatred demands that it slay all that it can reach.

It bursts through the door into reality once more but you are ready for it, immobilising it just as easily as you did before. Thankfully there only seems to be one of them per Low-Sec Cell. You could have been in a real pickle if they swarmed you.

You throw it in Gym 3 and bar the door with several beds that you used the Doorwheel to drag in from every other Low-Sec Cell. Just one bed probably wouldn't hold it after all.

With that done, you pop back down to the Control Room and check it out with the Adjuster.

Age Value: 0
Strength Value: 80
Toughosity Value: 80
Quickness Value: 80
Sin Value: 200
Height Value: 50

You flick over to Subjective.

Life Value: 100
Paternal Value: 0
Romantic Value: 0
Sentimental Value: 50

>>33904878
...dammit, we are sentimental suckers.

Redeem them. Reduce the Sin Value to 0.

...And S, T, and Q down to 30 each too. To be safe.

>>33904878
S, T, and Q down to 10. Life down to 25. Height down to 25. Life down to 50.

>Sin: 200
Well fuck. Angry ghosts are double-evil, I guess. Leave that on the way it is.

>>33904941
>Life down to 25. Height down to 25. Life down to 50.
What? Life is subjective. that'll just make us think it's probably-dead.

>>33904941

You set his Strength, Toughness and Quickness down to 10 and his Height Value to 25, reducing it to three-and-a-bit feet.
You also set Life Value to 25. You're still not sure what this doohickey does.

>>33904919

You try to reduce Sin to 0 but it's no use! Everytime your hand leaves the Adjuster it immediately readjusts itself. It is guided by a malice that cannot be so easily denied. The lowest you can set it to is 100.

>>33904992
Can we increase it past 100?

File: beginningoftheend.jpg (115 KB, 491x720)

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>>33905002
You think we can raise it to even higher than double-evil?

>>33904992
Reduce barkeep's sin to 50. We can ask him if he feels purer later.

>>33905018
Or just back to double-evil from single-evil. Above-100 values are interesting.

>>33905002
>>33905050
>>33905018

This isn't the first time you've seen a Value go above it's supposed maximum. The Dream Bar had a similar effect on you, after all.

Unfortunately the Adjuster can't raise it above 100, the machine simply isn't built for it. Not enough physical room on the abacus, you see.
You have to wonder why they didn't just use a digital array to move Values around.

>>33905029

You drop the Immoral Overseer in the Bar's Sin Value to 50.

>>33904992
With him weakened, he's of no threat stuck in the gym like that. Explore our own dream. See if the Arcana are there while we're awake.

>>33905113
Go check on it.

>>33905113
Isn't our stats adjuster in the gym?

>>33905151

You back into the Bar and try to commune with the Immoral Overseer but it suddenly seems reluctant to talk. It appears to be having a crisis of faith.

Well...whatever, dude.

>>33905121

You enter the Dreaming Door in your own Closet and find yourself standing in the meadow right by the hanging tree.

You make your way over to the rainbow bridge and cross it, following the upward path until you leave the planet behind you, once more sitting with Justice within the vast nebula.

"I-I have a low Sin Value right now so we should be friends right?"

Justice raises her sword and attacks!

>>33905258
Fend off the attack and back away. Come back with less sin. 1 sin, in fact. But first, check on Cellmate, see if he's awake.

>>33905258
Run away. I guess they're not fond of awake people.

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>>33905240
Yes but that's not your Gym, you trapped it in a different Low Security Cell's Gym.

Anyway, I have to go. Archiving the thread as we speak. Thanks to yall for sitting through my dumb scifi thing, see you tomorrow.

>>33905258
FFFFFFFu

run back to the real world and shrink height value before coming back to climb the string!

>>33905292
Awesome.

Sorry we just gotta find out all the mechanics before we actually go for an ending.

It's like where you do all the sidequests you can and try not to advance the main plot.