>>4215711
The water has been sitting for a bit and is beginning to cool. As you notice this, you yawn and stretch your arms. Your arms go wide, and then, absent-mindedly thinking of what else you must do today, you let them drop. And then, something Strange begins. You start seeing spots and dots. This does not worry you too much, you have been seeing such Shapes and Colors your whole life. When you were younger, you were diagnosed with a mild case of Silent Migraines, which are an uncommon type of migraine that does not cause any pain.

You would later joke about even your disabilities having disabilities. It has been a while since you have had one though, and the dots and spots are as brilliant as you have ever seen them. The Shapes are what is giving you pause though. You have never seen them like this before. When you were asked to describe the spots and dots once, during a more typical episode, you described the dots as something akin to a dead pixel that has been Colorized, usually Blue. And the spots were simply small clusters of a few dots. These spots and dots were something much more fierce than Turner-addled pixels though. These were opening and closing like irises, and they were shimmering and flickering where normally they were static. In fact, your vision is seeming to blur a bit, though it is hard to tell, as without your glasses, your eyesight is lousy to begin with.

As you wonder if you should mention this episode to a doctor, or maybe even mother, things get Stranger. Even though you have yet to get your head wet, even though the water has yet to reach above your shoulders, both of your ears pop, as if they were being drained of Something. And then, you hear the Noise. It sounds like a metal bar groaning under strain is being hit periodically with tuning forks. The constant moan punctuated by angry and insistent hums, that fade back into the groan. You’ve never considered yourself normal, but for once, you do the normal (or at least the predictable) thing, and get straight out of the tub.

>>4215714
And the Noise stops. The brilliance of the spots and dots wanes as you stand stock still, looming over the tub. The Shapes themselves stabilize. The spots that are open iris themselves close, and like the dots, stop flickering and shimmering. The Colors, go from a vibrant, almost Neon Red to a subdued dark Orangey Red. Outside of the spots and dots, your vision still seems … blurry? If you had to liken it to something, it looks like camera footage filmed through a lens that has been treated with petroleum jelly.

This is all very Strange. The obvious logical assumption is that something must have happened with the pipes to produce that Noise. Considering the shabby state of this weekend warrior built in-law apartment, with it being situated above a poorly insulated garage, a plumbing issue isn’t that surprising. The issue is that the Noise came and went with the brilliance of the Shapes and Colors. As you try to remember if you’ve ever heard things like this, you look down into the tub. A Bone from one of the Chicken Wings must have fallen into the bath. The spots and dots, the blurred (and unusually warmed) Vision, none of it is getting any better. This is also Strange, these episodes are usually brief, seconds long. But they still persist.

Deciding to just ignore them for now, you grab the Bone, intending to drain the tub once it is removed. You shiver, and the Noise and the brilliance of the spots and dots return. Startled, you let go of the Bone. The Noise and the brilliance continue. Really worried now, you stand up. As your hand leaves the water, the Noise stops abruptly and the brilliance of the spots and dots begins to wane again.

>>4215716
>You have made the following Deduction: Touching the Bone in the tub makes Noise and brilliant spots and dots. If you stop Touching the Bone in the tub, the Noise and the brilliant spots and dots will not stop. If you get out of the tub, then the Noise and the brilliant spots and dots will stop.

Is this some sort of unprecedented Strange Power?

>Yes, it most certainly is. You have developed Nascent Osseoperception (level 0). Our character has the ability to perceive the Strangeness, so long as the Strangeness is in the Presence of Bone. Specifics of this ability are currently unknown to the character. Further experimentation and deduction is required.

>As much as I would like to provide no further commentary, and leave you to figure out what exactly everything is about, and attempt this Quest on your terms and not mine, I do want my Quest to be somewhat accessible. So for the start of this thread, I’ll provide some information that our character doesn’t have, hopefully to help us along and get us going.

File: Breakdown.png (25 KB, 1152x648)

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>>4215718
>Our character has now become aware of both the Mundane World and the Strange Sphere. The ability that we are experiencing is called the Third Arm, named because it allows the Strange to reach out and through a Media that is specific to that bearer’s Third Arm, manipulate the Mundane. Our character has a Third Arm that Manifests through the Media of Bone. And our character will only ever be able to Manifest the Strangeness through Bone. In more colloquial language, we are a bone wizard.

>Any Third Arm starts with a rudimentary (Nascent) Perception based ability, that is specific to the Media that it Manifests through. This ability allows the bearer to be aware of Strangeness that is being Manifested anywhere in the Mundane World. However, the ability is weak enough that odds are the only Strangeness that the bearer will perceive with it is Strangeness that the bearer themselves is Manifesting passively. That is the basic explanation of what is happening to our character.

>There are four considerations to be made with Arm abilities. The first is Strength, which determines the maximum the ability can do when it is at Completion. Completion is a state where all non-target requirements of the ability are met. There is more to it than that, but for now, just consider Completion to be the requirement for using an ability. The second consideration is Media, which determines the material that the Arm ability uses. The third is Class, which determines what exactly the Arm ability does. The fourth is Refinement, which represents how much is known about the ability. As you learn more about the ability it becomes easier and safer to use.

>>4215723
>To discover an ability, you will have to experiment with the ways that the Strangeness around you interacts with our Media, Bone. By dumb luck, the conditions of Completion for Nascent Osseoperception were met, and we were able to become aware of our own Strangeness. By process of elimination, we determined enough of what was happening to attempt it again.

>Now, to improve this existing ability we need to learn more about it, by recreating what happened, then experimenting and observing. During the process, we may stumble across the conditions of Completion for another ability, and activate it as well. Mechanically, this part will be write-in heavy. Refining each ability through deduction will be a puzzle. It will start off with some basic observation of the phenomena that I will provide. There will be clues in the basic observation, and there will be clues in the narrative preceding the experiments. Right now, here are three big hints. Treat this like science, so keep a control, and then interact with experimental groups. Remember that it is us who is manifesting the Strangeness, without us, there is no Arm, no phenomena to observe, and Bones are just bones, so consider our relative position and condition an important part of the process. And pay attention to what is being capitalized.

You are standing above the tub, questioning your sanity, staring at a bone.

>What do you do? What do you look for? (Write-In)

>(I am terribly sorry about the first post. If anyone wants me to repost it with proper spacing, please let me know).

>>4215731
Take it out of the tub, and then touch the bone. If it gets weird, dry off and get some clothes on. else, go back to eating chicken wings.

Once we have clothes on, try walking toward one of the spots or dots.

>>4215924
Gingerly you reach into the tub and grab for the Bone. As you make Contact, for the third time today, the Noise and the brilliance return. This time, you make a point of removing the Bone from the bath. As the Bone clears the bath, the brilliance begins to dull. But this is much for gradual than before. In the previous two times, it was like a flick of a switch. But now it is gradual, and it doesn’t seem to go all of the way back to normal (if you can call a seizure normal). The Noise is still there two, but it is much quiet, and now it only sounds like the metal being strained. The angry, periodic hums that Punctuated the Noise can no longer be distinguished. You set the Bone down on the edge of the sink, and then the Noise stops and the brilliance finally fades.

The fact that this is still happening is unnerving you. You aren’t willing to completely dismiss out of hand that you are having some sort of mental Break right now, but you are willing to say that it isn’t the pipes.

>You have made the following Deduction: the Noise and the brilliance of the spots and dots is caused by the Bone, and not by the bath. Contact with the Bone in the bath produces more Noise and brilliance than Contact with the Bone out of the bath. Additionally, once Contact with the Bone is established in the bath, releasing the Bone but remaining in Contact with the bath maintains the bath levels of Noise and brilliance.

This is weird. Or at the very least, Strange. You elect to not bother with washing your hair today. Drying off, you place the Bone down on the sink. Grabbing the remaining food, as well as the other Bones, you go into the bedroom area of the loft, and get dressed. As you eat a Chicken Wing, you attempt to interact with the spots and dots. Blinking causes them to change position, squinting causes them to intensify, and reaching out or attempting to walk towards them doesn’t do anything. They seem fairly typical, as far as the kind of spots and dots people see.

It takes time, as you sit on your bed, and finish eating the Chicken Wings, but the spots and dots finally begin to fade away. You return to the bathroom, and again, glance down at the bath. You weren’t able to distinguish earlier, because you weren’t wearing your glasses until you got dressed again, but the water itself looks different. While your vision has otherwise returned to normal, with no spots and dots, the bathtub looks slightly off. Like it, and nothing else was warmer and fuzzier. Just like only the bathtub was being seen through a petroleum jelly filter, and everything else was normal.
Something strange happened to the Bone. Did something Strange happen to the bathtub itself? As you look over at the Bone, sitting in a small puddle of water on the edge of the sink, you realize that there are a whole box of Bones on your bed. Do they all do this, or is there something about this one in particular?

>>4215990
>With the two Deductions that have been made, you have learned enough about Nascent Osseoperception to increase the Refinement of the ability from level 0 to level 1. You have established that Contact must be made with a Bone for the ability to start (or in other words, reach Completion). You have established that ending Contact with the Bone will noticeably weaken the effects caused by Contact, and that these effects will eventually fade away entirely. You have also established that once the ability has reached Completion, Contact can be maintained through water.

>You have nothing but time on your hands, a single Noisy Bone, box of (so far) Silent Bones, and a full bathtub that looks just off, just Strange. What you do, and what do you look for? (Write-In)

>>4215924
>>4216021
Thanks for playing along anon. I'm off to bed now. I will run this Quest tomorrow, and when I am ready to start, I will make a post indicating I am back in the saddle. Look for a post before 6pm Eastern Standard Time.

Bring the bucket of bones into the bathroom and take time to test a few of them by dunking them in the bath.

Keep a few as the Control group that will remain in the bucket.

Get a glass of water from the bathroom sink and see if the bone sitting on the counter-and thereby likely any that react the same to the bathwater-causes the same phenomena when dunked in the glass.

See if sticking your hand in the bath sans bone has any effect.

>>4215711
>Terminal Autism Warning: This quest probably isn't going to be for everyone.
Holy shit you weren't kidding. This is weapons grade autism

>>4216281
support also remember we have bones inside our body

possible methods of noisy bone creation:
bone touches PGF water
bone touches PGF affected object
bone touches noisy bone
bone touches water

use a tool like pliers to see if any of those work without us touching the objects, then try repeating those that didn't work, without the pliers.


hypothesis: touching the bone to the water altered the water. "petroleum jelly filter" (PGF) appears on objects that are in contact with the water.

test: use a non-transparent cup to collect water from the bath without touching any bones. does the water still appear the same, does the PGF transfer to the cup?


hypothesis: if the above hypothesis is correct, the PGF will not remain if the water is removed.


test: pour the water back and wipe off the glass. does the PGF remain?


hypothesis: amount of surface the water touches determines strength or area of the effect

test: put a small droplet of PGF water on the sink (either by transfering it, or by touching the noisy bone to a droplet of water)


hypothesis: it doesn't have to be water

test: once we have managed to create PGF water, attempt to create another PGF liquid, such as juice or milk.


hypothesis: the effect is only on our perception.

test: take a photograph of something PGF-affected. does it look normal on the photo?


something for down the line:
if it's the water causing the PGF effect, does it continue to do so if it's a gas, or after being a gas, or if it's mixed with other water?

the substance of the object we're trying to get PGF on may matter. if we fail to get/transfer PGF, try to get it on other things. what substance is the tub made of?

>>4216281
You take several deep breaths. The bathmat underneath you is still slightly wet, and the air in the bathroom is damp. On the sink, lies the Noisy Bone, still drying from its time in the tub. You still aren’t completely convinced that you aren’t having some sort of mental Break, but as far as you can tell, you are completely Lucid. For the first time since you experienced the Noisy Bone, you wonder if you are dreaming. But after a few seconds, nothing changes like it would with that realization in a dream. Still, to be as thorough as possible, you concentrate, and attempt to wake yourself up. But you are already awake. Feeling tired, you sit down straight on the bathmat, ignoring the dampness as it seeps itself into the seat of your jeans.

After your interaction with the Noisy Bone, you have eliminated a mechanical explanation for the Noise, which even if you could find one, wouldn’t explain the brilliance that accompanies the Noise, only when you are in Contact with the Bone. As far as you are capable of telling, you are Lucid, and you are not dreaming. After a long moment, you resolve to treat this as some unprecedented phenomena, at least until there is new evidence that indicates that this is somehow all in your head. With that resolution, you decide to experiment, and hopefully Deduce more about what exactly is Strange about these Bones.

Getting up, you walk back into the bedroom area, and grab the bucket. These Bones look normal, but the Noisy Bone looks normal too, right? You return with the Bones into the bathroom. Separating the dozen or so Bones into a control and experimental group, you take the experimental group out of the bucket, and hold them in your hand. The spots and dots, the Noise both are gone. But the bathtub itself still looks Strange. It is unnerving you, immensely. It is like a movie that is filmed in Black and White that has just one thing Colorized. It looks warm and soft and fuzzy. And somehow, sinister.

Turning back to the task at hand, you take one of the control group, and drop it into the bathtub. The surface ripples as the Bone passes through, and you watch as it settles to the bottom. Nothing is happening, but that was to be expected. You have Deduced that the effects of the Noisy Bone were only felt when you were in Contact with it. So, if you were to touch this one, would it be the same? You slip your hand into the bath. The water is noticeably warm, and in an instant, the spots and dots return. Okay, you expected this, because something is obviously Strange about this bathtub now. You wait a few moments, to see if the spots and dots go away. They don’t.

>>4217326
Again, you expected this, considering how long it took for the spots and dots to go away the first time. You take a deep breath, trying to calm yourself, and you lean in to touch the Bone. The Bone is still Silent. This, you were not expecting. You break Contact with the Bone, and after a second you try grabbing the Bone instead of simply touching it. It is still Silent. You must be overlooking something. You glance over at the sink, and the Noisy Bone. It looks just like any ordinary Bone. It looks just like the Silent Bone in the bathtub right now. For that matter, it looks just like most of the Silent Bones in the experimental and control groups.

Frustrated, you get up, and mentally work over what you know. Something happened to one Bone while you were in the bathtub. Whatever happened in the bathtub made the Noisy Bone, and it additionally made the bathtub, as in both the structure and contents of the tub look Strange. Whatever conditions that made the Noisy Bone Noisy aren’t being met by the Silent Bone that is now sitting in the bottom of the bathtub. You grab another handful of Silent Bones from the experimental group and dunk them into the bathtub. Nothing else is happening. You are still seeing the same spots and dots that you were when you touched the bath with the first Silent Bone in it.

You then head out of the bathroom into the kitchen area and grab a clean glass from the cabinet. Returning to the bathroom, you go to the sink, and fill the glass. Holding the glass at eye level, so you can see what as happening as you make contact with the glass, you reach in to touch the Noisy Bone. As you make Contact, the spots and dots brighten. Barely brighten. And the Noisy Bone isn’t making any Noise.

>>4217329
What the actual fuck is going on here.

File: Arm Bone Quest Notes 1.jpg (252 KB, 1700x2200)

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>>4217334
You break Contract with the Noisy Bone, and the spots and dots fade back to how they were before Contact. At this point you are officially more mad than unnerved by all of this. Between the spots and dots and the Strangeness of the bathtub, there is some phenomena going on here. But you can’t isolate it. Running out of ideas, you remove the Silent Bones in the experimental group from the bathtub and place them in the bathroom sink to dry off. Without any Bones in the tub, you reach in. There is no brightening of the spots and dots like with the Noisy Bone. Well, that is everything that you can think of for right now. Maybe try waiting for the spots and dots to fade away completely and then touching the water will do something. You leave the bathroom for now, and return to the bedroom area. You grab the towel you used earlier today, and you dry off your arms. You decide to take a moment to work out what happened on a piece of scrap paper.

>>4217336
>God damn it, I forgot to space out the paragraphs again. At least the notes came out looking alright.

>>4216679
>Yeah, I know. I've run a quest once before, under the same name. That one was even more autistic, if I am being honest. Still, I would like to think that I learned a lot from it.

>>4217202
>>4217297
>Glad to have you along. I intend to be back in the thread for 7pm Eastern Standard time. I will post to let everyone know that I am back, and then I will start working on a post to respond to all of the hypothesis that have been floated. Starting with the ones that we put up before today's posts.

>A hint (that I have already given, so it is more like a reminder). Remember, that our character is the one who is responsible for the Strangeness. Without them, the Bones are just bones. So when something is happening that doesn't make sense, pay attention to our condition and actions. Our character is missing something big.

>>4217401

hypothesis: the effect is related to the bits of us in the water.

try moving some water around in our mouth for a minute, spit that into a glass, and touch that with the NB.

Writing things down has always helped you think things out, and when you think things out, you are much less agitated. This holds true, even when dealing with this Strange phenomena. Perhaps looking into the distortion of the tub will provide some additional insight to the Bones. Returning briefly to the bedroom area, you grab a pair of lineman pliers from the toolbox you keep by your bed, and you resolve to be as methodological as possible to catch whatever you are missing here.

After a moment of thought, you grab one of the control group instead of the experimental group, on the grounds that the experimental group may have already been altered by submersion in the tub. You have seven Bones in the control group, and 2 bones in the experimental group that you haven’t used. If you are to maintain at least one control, you can run a total of 8 independent tests. The first test is placing a Bone in Contact with the distorted water, without us making contact. A repeat of an earlier test, where noting happened. And as expected, nothing happened this time either. The Bone remains Silent.

The second test is a new one. Touch the experimental bone to something besides water that was affected by the Strangeness that looks like it has been hit with a petroleum gel filter (PGF). Something like this should have come to you earlier, considering that the whole bathtub looks like it was affected by a PGF. Doesn’t it? Well, now that you are focusing on the bathtub, you aren’t so sure. From a distance, yes, it certainly does. Up close, and the water looks like PGF water, but the tub itself is a different story.

The painted metal outside of the tub and the water itself look like they are both PGF, but the inside of the tub, the part above the water line looks normal. No distortion. You didn’t notice before. You were focusing on what had changed, and not what had remained the same. You haven’t even run the test and you feel like you have found something big. You select a Bone to test and after deciding to test contact with the outside of the bathtub, and as you go to grab it with the pliers you can actually feel your heart skip a beat.

>>4217809
The pliers are now distorted, just like the petroleum gel filtered bathtub!

>>4217814
Whatever is happening here, it can spread. And it can spread quickly! You were only looking at the sides of the tub for what? At most, half a minute? You can feel panic rising. An absurd mental image of a newspaper headline “Local Student Damages Fabric of Reality” flashes before your eyes. You need to try to calm down!

>This isn’t good. You are going to need to calm down before you can continue any tests. Hell, you are probably going to want to stop this from spreading before you continue any more tests. If our character wasn’t panicked right now, they would see the clue, a fairly obvious one, that when figured out would complete a Deduction required to understand how to contain this Strangeness from spreading.

>Let us try to get back on track. Can an Anon please roll a 1d6? 1 and 2 means that our character manages to remain calm. This acts like a passed test in another Quest, and additionally will mean that they are in a state of mind to automatically notice the clue. 3 and 4 means that our character panicked. This acts like a failed test in another Quest, which means that the character will not be able to pick up on the clue necessary for the Deduction. 5 and 6 means that the character Breaks, just a little. If that happens here, I will explain further. If not, then we can save that mechanic for later. I don’t want to bury everyone under mechanics.

>One roll of 1d6 please, and good luck!

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>4217821
second paragraph of >>4217809
we touched a bone and the pliers. this may have been what made them PGF, maybe we didn't notice, or it wasn't instant.

hypothesis: the water is PGF, the tub is not. we can see the PGF-ness of PGF objects through other objects, at least at short distances. the outside top of the tub looks PGF because we're looking at the PGF-ness of the water through the tub. the inside top of the tub does not look PGF because there isn't anything PGF behind it.

test: sit down and look at the tub from below the waterline. does the top of the tub stop looking PGF?

together: PGF did not spread from the water to the tub, nor from the water to the pliers.


hypothesis: PGF appears when we touch something non-PGF that touches bone (possibly only non-Noisy), with possibly some additional requirements.

test: get a napkin or piece of paper. tear off a strip of it. place the rest on the sink. place a fresh bone on the napkin using our hands. (as we've already touched the bones while we were eating, and we don't know if the pliars will do something) place the strip of paper on the bone and hold the other end for half a minute.

disregard all tests in >>4217297 except for the photograph.

I'd like to note I am following this but all I have to add just now is the application of portable containers of bone broth is something to look into.

So barely anything from the NB when placed in the glass.

Hmm...perhaps the effect of the bones in the bath has a stronger effect if the water is warm? It was noted that the water had just started to cool right before the noise and spots showed up from the NB having fallen in.

Maybe try running a bit of hot water into the bath to raise the temp before trying again?

>>4217968
>Okay, well, it looks like we are going to be dealing with the Breaking mechanics today after all. Breaking is meant to be a complicated mechanic, designed to reflect the warping and damaging nature of the Strangeness.

>Hopefully, this doesn't get to bad...

>The stress of dealing with the Strange is threatening to overwhelm us. Dealing with this stress, and the effects of this stress is going to be a constant concern. To reflect this, there is the mechanic of Breaking in this Quest. There are certain situations that call for a Breaking test being rolled. While the most common would be a Breaking failure being rolled in a Panic Test, like the one we just did, additional reasons for rolling such a test include (but not exclusive to) interactions of abilities and environmental effects.

>>4218132
>There is a distinction between panic and Breaking. The effects of panic are limited to a single failure. Relatively speaking, these failures are not that bad, considering that the worst-case scenario for a failed Panic Test is that whatever you are trying to do in that moment doesn’t happen. But when a Panic Test rolls a Breaking failure, then the character must pass the Breaking Test. Failure in these tests are dangerous, as because not making the roll produces a stackable penalty called the Stress Malus. These can be removed by the passage of time, or the positive and conclusive resolution of whatever caused the Breaking Test to be rolled.

>At this point in the Quest, the single ability that we are working with is so simple, that we can ignore the effects of the Stress Malus for now. But that isn’t always going to be the case, and even if we ignore the effects of the Stress Malus themselves, once three have been stacked, in the place of the fourth (and fifth and so on) we will gain some chronic affliction, that I will roll for. When (or hopefully if) we get to that point, I will provide the table. And by chronic, I mean effectively permanent issues, that will require significant investment (and tailor-made abilities) to cure. Even if you remove all of the Stress Maluses underneath the chronic affliction, it will still remain active.

>Breaking Tests are conducted by the QM rolling a 1d6, to determine the number of roles that players get to attempt to pass the test. There are going to be ways to increase that number, but we don’t have access to them yet. Once the QM determines how many rolls the players get to pass the Breaking Test, that many players will roll a 1d100. When there are no Stress Malus active, you are trying to roll a Prime Number, a one-in-four chance. When there are any Stress Malus active, you are trying to roll a Fibonacci Number, a one-in-ten chance.

>I have rolled with this post. That is the number of tries you have with a 1d100 to get any Prime Number. Good luck!

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>4218142
Damn it, I know I rolled the damn dice.

Rolled 66 (1d100)

>>4218148
>Thank goodness. That means that we get 6 rolls to get a Prime Number on a d100. If someone wants to roll all of them, or just one, go ahead.

>Also, despite the 1/3 odds of it happening, I was hoping that we wouldn't even need to run a Breaking Test for a while yet. I don't want to keep burying players under mechanics.

Rolled 26, 95, 13 = 134 (3d100)

>>4218169
>Good, that 13 is what we need. We have successfully avoided Breaking. Though in our panic, we did manage to miss something important. Resuming...

It takes some time, but as you kneel on the bathmat, staring at the PGF pliers you are able to bring yourself back down. Running away or ignoring this isn’t going to fix this. For the first time, the thought of actually asking someone else for help crosses your mind. But there is the question of how they will react to all of this. In fact, there is still the question if any of this is real. You probably would be more resistant to panic and Breaking if you were completely convinced that this was real. The best way to do that would be to get independent verification of the phenomena. Easier said then down when everyone is in lockdown. Still, there is something that you can do. You take your phone out of its spot in your back pocket, and you take a picture of the head of the pliers.

The photograph shows the distortion! You get another idea, instead of taking a photo, you simply watch the screen of the phone with the camera open. The phone is definitely picking up on the distortion. You move it over to the bathtub. And the phone picks up on that distortion as well. You don’t know for sure still, and you wont until you can find a third party to verify this, but you are now almost certain that this isn’t just in your head.

You sigh.

>>4218283
Deliberately holding the pliers away from you, but not taking you eyes off of them, you shift from kneeling on the bathmat to sitting on it. You were looking at the bathtub when you first noticed the pliers, right? What was going on with the tub? There is a distortion with some of it. You move the pliers over in your hand, so that you keep them in your line of sight as you closely examine the bathtub itself. The water is distorted, the outside of the tub is distorted, but the inside seems normal. You are looking right at it. It looks perfectly normal, up to the edge of the lip.

Right where the material from the inside changes to the material from the outside. From enamel to painted metal. Oh, now wait a minute! That is certainly something, isn’t it?

>You have made the following Deduction: Some materials, like enamel are resistant to the distorting effect called PGF. Some materials, like metal and water are not resistant to the distorting effect called PGF.

>>4218288
For the second time in a minute, you sigh. This one is a relieved sigh though. You finally feel like you are making headway with all of this Strangeness.

You glance at the Silent Bones that remain in the control group, that you haven’t used. You set the pliers down on the bathroom sink, on the opposite side of the Noisy Bone. The Noisy Bone hasn’t had any effect on the sink it seems, so it should be safe. It is a good thing that you made a point of keeping them separate, otherwise you might get them … confused? Wait a minute, what? Why does the Noisy Bone look identical to the control group’s Silent Bones. It is the Strangest thing in the bathroom, and there is nothing that visually distinguishes it as such.

Looking between the distortion on the pliers and the Noisy Bone, it is obvious that the Noisy Bone isn’t being distorted. You aren’t just going to touch it just yet, but you are absolutely certain that this is not suffering from PGF distortion like the inside of the bathtub, the pliers and the water itself. Not to mention the Silent Bones that were in the experimental group, they are still at the bottom of the bathtub.

>>4218346
You whip your head towards the tub. The experimental group! You just left them submerged all of this time, after trying to make another Noisy Bone. How long has it been. Should they stay in there? You move over to the bathtub, and lean over to look at the pile of Silent Bones sitting there. The damned water itself is still PGF distorted, so you have a hard time distinguishing if they are distorted as well.

You had another experiment in mind; about touching the Noisy Bone to water that we had been in contact with. Specifically, you were going to swish some water around in your mouth, put it into a glass, and then see if the Noisy Bone responded to that. But now your are thinking about the experimental group. They are just sitting in the bottom of the bathtub. Is that a problem? If you just dumped a bunch of Bones into a bathtub, isn't that what they would do? You don't even know for sure that they have been distorted. The only Bone that you took out of the water was the Noisy Bone, and that one looks fine. Do you just reach in and grab them? What if they are distorted, do you put them back into the tub?

Which raises another point, what the hell are you going to do about the bathtub? You might not have been the most diligent with hygiene lately (or before the shutdown, either to be honest), but at some point you intended to use it again. Can you still? Would it be safe to ... drain it? Ever?

>You have three options before you right now. None of them are mutually exclusive, but two of them might be redundant Give one priority, and I will try to complete it before I go to bed tonight. Vote is open for the next 30 minutes or so.

>Leave the experimental group in the bottom of the bathtub for now, and continue with your experiments with the Noisy Bone.

>Retrieve the experimental group from the bottom of the tub for examination.

>Take one Silent Bone from the control group, submerge it in the tub, temporarily, then remove it.

>>4218288

retrieve the experimental group. hoping this won't make us trip extra hard because there are more bones.

confirm if PGF is contagious when no bones or you are involved. drop a paperclip on the pliers. wait a bit, then try touching them.

You make a point of taking a few calming breaths. You have been starting so many things, it seems to be time to properly finish at least one of them. You roll up your sleeve, get into position over the tub, and after a second of hesitation, you reach for the Silent Bones of the experimental group. As your hand makes contact with the water, you begin experiencing the spots and dots again. They are not brilliant as they were with the Noisy Bone, but they are there. This is however, the first time that you have touched the water affected by the PGF distortion without a Bone and without already seeing spots.

>You have made the following deduction: Making contact with PGF distorted water will cause you to see spots. Making contact with PGF distorted water when you are already seeing spots will not result in any noticeable change.

Alright, you are making headway. Now, to see if these Bones are still Silent. Deciding to take them out one at a time, you withdraw each and every Bone from the bathtub. They are all still Silent. You place them on the enamel rim of the bathtub, which shows no signs of distortion. Acutely aware of the passage of time, you look over to the bathroom sink. Everything is as normal and as distorted as it was when you left it. Feeling assured that at least, nothing seems to be getting Stranger on you, you return to observe these Silent Bones of the experimental group. It is not that hard to tell, even without getting down on eye level with them, that these Bones are being effected by PGF distortion. With that in mind, you dry your hands on a towel. Before all of this started, you were using this towel as a pillow in the bathtub. You already used it to dry off once, so it is still slightly wet. As you think about this, you check for signs of PGF distortion, and while it is harder to see on something that is already soft and fuzzy, you can definitely make it out.

>You have made the following Deduction: Some materials, like enamel are resistant to the distorting effect called PGF. Some materials, like metal, water and cotton fabrics are not resistant to the distorting effect called PGF.

You make a point of putting the towel back where it was, also on the rim of the bathtub. If the enamel of the tub is resistant to the distortion, then that might be enough to keep it from spreading. Now that you have removed the experimental group, you have several other experiments to try. Just think, you were having a hard time to find things to do less than an hour ago. Funny how that works, isn't it? You are going to make a point of updating your notes though before you do anything else. It will help you keep track of all of this.

>Well, I think we are off to a good start here. So I intend on updating the Notes, and when I am ready to continue tomorrow, I’ll post it. Tomorrow’s experiments will be the mouthwash test mentioned in >>4217475 and then seeing how the Silent Bones react if the PGF distorted water is heated while they are in them, as mentioned in >>4218121. Here is an overnight vote:

>Run the heat experiment with the Silent Bones only

>Run the heat experiment with the Silent Bones and the Noisy Bone

how do we intend to heat water without making more things PGF? we don't know what's necessary for PGF to spread, so we probably shouldn't drain the tub. googling, it looks like enamel is literally porcelain, so maybe use hot tapwater in a porcelain cup or bowl?

anyhow, we're trying to replicate the creation of the noisy bone, and we didn't have a Noisy bone before we made it.
I guess separate tests with the silent and the noisy bone, in bath-temperature water we then let cool.

if it doesn't work, reasons why might be:
not us water
not enough water
no metal

>>4218425
Oh yeah, the paperclip idea is a great experiment! Let's do that!

btw, really enjoying autismquest OP

There seemed to be a strong reaction between PGF water and the Noisy Bone, maybe there are other reactions with the Noisy Bone and other PGF objects.

hypothesis: Strangeness (spots, lights, etc.) increases when we touch the Noisy Bone to a PGF object

test: hold the Noisy bone in one hand and the pliers in the other. Touch the head of the pliers and the Noisy Bone together.

Also, to avoid contamination through fibers, we should probably strip down nude. Don't want to risk spreading the Strange through our jeans.

>>4218386
Hygiene seems like a secondary concern compared to Strangeness. Definitely don't drain the tub.

You hadn’t thought about the conditions of your clothes before, but if the PGF distortion spreads so easily, you don’t want to risk it. You decide going forward that you aren’t going to wear anything into the bathroom, to prevent the spread of the distortion. And you decide that anything that you bring into the bathroom, is going to be kept in there. As you undress, you decide to stop thinking of the bathroom as a bathroom. Going forward, you will think of it as the Wet Lab, and will attempt to treat it like a laboratory. That you can’t wear clothes in. Sounds like a plot to a porno …

After a moment of thought, you bundle up your clothes, and put them on top of the bathmat, which is still sort of wet. You take the Bones in the control group from and put them on the back of the toilet. You take the towel, which you have been using to dry off, and you put that with the clothes and the bathmat. Alright, you are feeling pretty good about all of this.

Walking into the bedroom area, you move to the door to the Wet Lab. You are going to make a point of undressing and putting your clothes here, so they do not get contaminated. On the topic of contamination, you look yourself over. You have been fairly careless about reaching in to whatever the hell is going on in the bathtub, or about walking or kneeling or sitting on wet things, which may or may not be PGF distorted wetness, but it seems that you are unaffected. You make sure to closely examine your hands and arms, your feet, and your knees. And as awkward as it is, you examine your ass. It isn’t easy between it being behind you, and well, it being covered in hair, but it, and the rest of you seem to be alright.

File: Arm Bone Quest Notes 2.jpg (348 KB, 1700x2200)

348 KB JPG

>>4220230
Now, you have several experiments, but before anything else happens, you are going to make a point of writing everything that happened down in your notes. You sit down in the only other chair in the bedroom area, and resume writing on the scrap paper from earlier. As always, writing things out is a big help for you. You don’t want to miss anything here, so you start from the beginning …

… Alright. So after attempting to make Noisy Bones from the experimental group in the bathtub, you then ran a test on the Noisy Bone. This was the first time that Contact with the Noisy Bone didn’t make any Noise. Either when you were handling it to put it in the glass of water, or when you were touching it in the glass of water. But why would contact with you make Noise once, but not twice. Why was this not repeatable?

Was there some condition that is no longer being met, or is it a matter of a charge of some sort. If you dropped the Noisy Bone back into the bathtub, would that make Noise? Returning to your note keeping, you remember that the very last test you ran before starting these notes was to see what happen when you touched the bathtub without any Bones. You resume writing, until the realization hits you. You removed the Silent Bones from the bathtub.

>>4220234
Twice.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>4220239
What the hell is happening? It was such a simple thing. You took them out of the bathtub and placed them in the sink. To dry off. Nothing happened. You didn’t really look at them for distortion. Maybe if you had, you might have remembered. Maybe if the pliers hadn’t shook you as much as they did, you would have been in the presence of mind to compare them to something else that had been exposed to distortion; the fucking experimental group, which would have reminded you, these Bones weren’t supposed to be in the bottom of the fucking bathtub! How could you have forgot! Did you forget? Did you imagine this? Are we imagining things? What … is the room spinning?

> If you went to sleep in a room, alone, and a small object had moved from one place to another while you slept, if you even noticed it, you would assume that you moved it and forgot. You probably would not even be conscious of this assumption. The human brain is very fond of rationalizations like this. For rationalized assumption to be accurate, the full extent of the mechanics must be known. We can rationalize that something tossed up will fall down, as we understand the basic mechanics of gravity. But without the understandings of mechanics, then this all falls apart.

> Assumptions are subtle things. Often, you don’t realize you have made them until things have gone wrong. Really wrong. Remember that. And as our character is in a state where they are actively questioning if they are sane, would a number of Anons equal to the dice roll of this post please roll a d100. You are trying to get a Prime Number to avoid Breaking.

>>4220245
>Okay, well. Whoever rolls, good luck. Remember, you have 1-in-4 odds of passing the Breaking Test.

>The numbers you need are 2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37 41 43 47 53 59 61 67 71 73 79 83 89 or 97.

>And not to put any pressure on you, but if you fail, then until the Stress Malus is remove, all Breaking Tests will use the Fibonacci Numbers instead of the Prime Numbers. Those are 1-in-10 odds, instead of 1-in-4. Good luck.

Rolled 60 (1d100)

there's still the same amount of bones, right?

>>4220271
well shit, looks like our ass is going insane.

>>4220271
>>4220515

>Stress (Level 1)
>Time until Fatigue (Level 1) applied, 3 hours and 17 minutes.

The room is spinning. While you think that this is just you, at this point, you are not even sure of that anymore. You sit down on the bed, hard. Normally, on the rare occasions that you are worked up like this, you simply try to sleep it off. But you cannot. You are simply too cautious, and while you would never admit it, simply to paranoid to ignore this. Until you have convinced yourself that you are sane, or at the very least, understand the mechanism of what happened with the Silent Bones, you are not going to be able to sleep. As much as you would like to, you cannot sleep. You cannot close your eyes. Your shoulders sag but you don’t fall back onto the bed. You remain seated, staring at the door to the Wet Lab. It takes time, but eventually, the spinning stops. Okay. Now, before we finish the notes, before we start new experiments, we need to determine the existence of a mechanism that caused this. If we can isolate and reproduce whatever happened, then at the very least, we are not crazy. Just really fucking Strange. For the first time since all of this started, you look to the alarm clock on your bedside table. It is 6:43 pm.

>Alright, so. The good news is that we are back on our feet. The bad news is that we are stressed. Stressed and scared. For the Quest to move forward at this point, our character has to prove to themselves that they are still sane, and can still rely on their memory. As indicated in the narrative, what is needed here is an isolated and reproduced phenomenon. If they have that, then the character knows, that at the very least, they can rely on their memory. In addition to stress, there are also concerns about fatigue that are going to come in. Our character had a full day today. They did coursework, they exercised, and they doubted their sanity. At 10:00pm, our character will receive the fatigue modifier.

>While under normal conditions, fatigue doesn’t incur any negative penalties, our character is stressed. When you are both stressed and fatigued, you run the risk of Breaking. When a character is affected by both the stress and fatigue modifiers, then they must roll Breaking Tests, every other hour. And as our character indicated, they aren’t willing to just go to bed and deal with the question of their sanity in the morning, so that isn’t going to be an option here.

>With the clock ticking now, to prove to our character that they are sane, and ensure that they get a good night sleep, you must unravel this puzzle, fast. I will estimate the elapsed time for each action that we take. Good luck, and hopefully, we can turn this around!

Okay, so we're on a timer now and need to ignore all the experiments that don't create another Noisy Bone.

The PGF bathwater doesn't appear to have any negative effect on us. So maybe we can try recreating the exact same situation.

I propose:
>1. Strip down again in our bedroom to preserve the closed nature of the wet lab
>2. Sit down in the PGF bathwater, both hands submerged
>3. Take one of the Control Bones and drop it in the bathwater with you
>4. Pull your hands out of the water for ~2 minutes
>5, Submerge both hands back into the water
>6, Exit the bathtub
>7, Reach one hand into the bathtub and remove the Bone we placed there in step 3
>8, Place the Bone down on the ceramic rim of the bathtub
>9, Pick up the bone again to test whether it is Noisy

If we did this correctly, we should have created another Noisy Bone.

If this is unsuccessful, then something must be different. It may be a change in the water (we don't know if the original bathwater was already PGF'ed; in the original case, it was warm water cooling toward room temp) or it may be a difference in our actions (in the original case, we yawned and stretched).

>>4216679
I'm re-reading this slowly for the second time now and my eyes are glazing over
I fear a nosebleed, this is indeed some rarefied stuff

>>4220821
>Okay, I will have the post up later tonight. I found a table, referenced in another Quest that I will use as a template for the table of Chronic Affliction modifiers, I will post that when I am back in the thread, and then I will start writing. Probably around 7pm Eastern Standard Time.

>>4221336
Yeah, I was concerned about that. On one hand, if I let the posts go on to long, then I run the risk of scaring people off, or exhausting anyone trying to stick around. On the other hand, if I am to brief, then I might not be able to get all of the information across to the readers that I want with the posts. (And it means that it is harder to hide things for reveals, or set things up for later). It is a real balancing act. Going forward, I am going to try to tighten up the posts. By Word's count, I am at 7421 words. For a quest that hasn't even been up for four days, that seems pretty excessive. Though really, everyone who stuck around long enough to post has been good sports, and for that I am thankful.

>See you all tonight!

>>4222117
I like it, don't get me wrong
just keep doing your thing, I especially love the notes

>Hello everyone. Sorry for the slightly late start, the table that I saved wasn't the right one, and then the one that I wanted was massive. Too big to convert over before tonight's session. So, look for that sometime this week. Resuming...

This was supposed to be an easy, relaxing night. You even had all your assignments for your courses in early! Or on time, at least. Regardless, the only way you can hope to deal with any of this is to know that you can at the very least count on your memory. That means you need to produce a second Noisy Bone, and you also need to figure out what the hell is going on with the Silent Bones in the experimental group moving around like that. You sit up straight and then get up deliberately, to make sure that you still are not having issues with dizziness. You are fine. Everything is fine. That is really what is getting to you here. Whatever is happening here, it is confined to the Wet Lab, formerly the bathroom.

You undress, and leave your clothes on the seat you left by the door, for just this purpose. Whatever that distortion is, what ever it means, it managed to spread to the cotton towel. So that means that most of your clothes are vectors. You walk through the door, and enter the Wet Lab. The Silent Bones that remain in the control group are sitting on back of the toilet, where you left them. And the Silent Bones of the experimental group, are –

>>4222903
Not entirely where you left them.

>>4222907
This is ridiculous! How many times have you been ready to start an experiment just for it to be derailed! You still on the first fucking step! The Noisy Bone, which seems to be the Strangest thing in here hasn’t caused you this kind of aggravation! It was the Silent Bones and the pliers that tripped you up. More exasperated then alarmed, you glance over to the sink, where the pliers sit, opposite of the Noisy Bone. They are still there.

What is it with the Bones? The pliers, the bathmat, your clothes, all of them have experienced the PGF distortion. Why are the Silent Bones the only thing that reacts like this, why are they different from everything else? … Well, wait. Now that you say that, the Silent Bones are the only thing that act differently. The Strange Bone has been in the PGF distorted water, and it didn’t become distorted at all. The enamel coat of the inside of the bathtub doesn’t seem to be distorted, even though the painted metal of the outside of the bathtub does. The pliers seemed to distort faster then the Silent Bones, because when you removed them the first time, didn’t show any sign of the PGF distortion. But unlike the Silent Bones, the pliers still haven’t moved. The towel was distorted at some point, and now that you look carefully, the you can see where the clothes and the bathmat are distorted as well. It is harder to see the distortion on fabrics. There is one final thing to consider, you have been exposed to more PGF distortion than the Noisy Bone ever was, and you weren’t distorted either.

Then one big puzzle piece finally falls into place. If you were to accept that you are Lucid, and that your memory can be trusted, and additionally, that these Silent Bones in the experimental group were not simply falling back into the bathtub, but rather, moving back into it on their own, then there is clearly a mechanism that determines WHEN they do, right? Because some have moved back, and some haven’t.

All of a sudden, you feel really close to understanding what is happening here. Well, that at least is an improvement from … what time is it? … 7:00pm. So 13 minutes ago, according to the clock next to your bed.

>>4222910
>You have made the following deductions: There is a mechanic that dictates if something can be affected by an object that is experiencing PGF distortion. There is a mechanic that dictates how quickly an object becomes PGF distortion. There is a mechanic that dictates if an object with PGF distortion “moves”. Finally, there is a mechanic that dictates when an object with PGF distortion “moves” if it is capable of “movement”.

Feeling better about your situation, you reach into the Bathtub and grab the Silent Bones in the experimental group that are in the bathtub, and reunite them next to those that hadn’t moved yet. As expected, contact with the PGF distorted water causes the spots and dots in your vision to return. After moving them, you grab the towel off of the rim of the bathtub. Even though it is still damp from earlier, it is enough to dry you off.

>Alright, so we are back on track. The bathtub has been cleared out, and we can continue following the instructions that we laid out. Alternatively, if you are so inclined, this could be a good moment to try to puzzle out the mechanics of the PGF distortion some more. If you want to know more about a particular object, and see if there is anything else that may have been overlooked, this could also be a good use of our characters time right now.

>Continue to attempt to recreate a Noisy Bone.

>Examine an object in the Wet Lab, in hopes of noticing something else.

>(Both of these choices are mutually exclusive, but we should be able to do both tonight. I just want to give one or the other priority right now. Writing in an educated guess about the mechanics of the PGF distortion is not exclusive with the two choices above, as it is an idea and not an action)

>>4222912

>Continue to attempt to recreate a Noisy Bone.

Have this be the main focus of the night, but we can do other stuff. In particularly, let's separate out the experimental Silent Bones we *just* took out of the bathtub into a separate group. If it timed, then we'll know it takes x number of minutes from 19:00.

>>4220230
did we dress when we left the wet lab? it doesn't say here.


>>4217336
is this the same towel that's on the bathtub now?
anyhow, we dried off PGF water from our arms on this towel. if it is, it's moved, if it isn't, we should move it to the wet lab and see if it's PGF.

>Continue to attempt to recreate a Noisy Bone.

down the line (because I may be busy during the run):

>examine:
what are the toilet seat and sink made of?

guess: whether it moves depends on what it's touching.

>examine:
there's talk about where the clothes are distorted. the clothes are not fully distorted. is this distortion fiber by fiber? is the distorted area still wet? (this might mean the clothes are not distorted, they're just soaked in distorted water).

>>4223686

Oh yeah, that's a good question, does the water cause distortion or are the objects themselves fully distorted and PGF'fied?

If the toilet and sink are ceramic, that gives up two more safe areas to experiment with making PGF water. But if we do that, its probably a bad idea to release either into the water system, so we have to think about whether we want to use the sink or toilet (maybe we can piss in the kitchen sink?)

>>4223221
>Alright. I'll start writing for tonight's session right now. Look for it up around 7pm Eastern time.

>>4223686
>Yes, to both questions.

>So we will resume with attempting to make a Noisy Bone by sitting in the bathtub like we were earlier.

>>4223686
double-checked this. we're the ones who moved the towel:
>>4218692
it doesn't seem to be moving on its own.

good luck everyone.

>Stress (Level 1)
>Time until Fatigue (Level 1) applied, 3 hours.

You take a series of several short breaths. You have cleared the runaway Silent Bones from the experimental group out of the bathtub. You head over to when you left the Silent Bones in the control group in the takeout box. There are five left. To eliminate as many possible variables as you can, you turn to the sink and you grab the Noisy Bone, so that you can compare the control group to it. Again, the Noisy Bone is still not making any Noise, or making the spots that you are already seeing any more brilliant then they already are. After looking over the remaining Silent Bones, you pick the one that is closest in size, coloration and weight. There is nothing left for it. The only thing that you are doing differently this time is that you are still wearing your glasses, so you get a better look at what is happening. If nothing happens, then you will run the test again without them.

After mulling it over a bit, you decided that you must have knocked the Bone in from the rim of the bathtub when you were stretching and yawning. With that in mind, you plan on getting in the bath first, then dropping the experimental Silent Bone into the bath. To make sure that you aren’t confusing anything, you make a point of reaching over the bathtub and placing the new Silent Bone on the rim of the far side of the bathtub, where there are no other Bones. With that done, you have done everything you can think of to eliminate any unnecessary variables. You take another series of short breaths.

>>4224835
And you slide into the bathtub.

>>4224839
The first thing you notice before anything else is that it is noticeably warm. Warmer than a tub full of still water should be after having been left sitting for going on what, two hours now? You were already seeing spots and dots from the Contract you made with the water removing the runaways, so no change there.

As much as you want to get on with it, you make a point of sitting and soaking for a bit. You glance over at the Silent Bones in the experimental group that have already been exposed to the PGF distorted water. All eight are still there. You then glance to the sink. When you can’t quite see from this angle, you shift and sit up straight, straining. The Noisy Bone and the pliers are still where you left them. And the on the toilet, the bucket is still there as well, though you can’t see into it.
At this moment though, you aren’t concerned about the control group. If you understand what is happening, the ability of the experimental group to move stemmed somehow from its interaction with the PGF distorted water. So, as far as you can tell, those are just normal bones … Though if you do need to rerun the test, you will make a point of taking them off of the top of the toilet and placing them on the seat, in some orientation that you can see from your position in the bathtub.

You look to the experimental group again. There are still 8 bones, where you left them, in various stages of drying. For that matter, the towel and bathmat have not moved either. Finally, you look to the Noisy Bone and the pliers sitting on opposite sides of the pedestal sink. As satisfied as you are going to be shift back into the water. Your eyes remain riveted to the Noisy Bone, even as it slips out of view, obscured by the gleaming white porcelain basin of the sink. You can still see a portion of the heavy grip of the lineman pliers though.

>>4224843
As bad as distorting the bathtub was, with the prospect of losing the damage deposit, or more likely, having to replace it at some point to hide what happened here (whatever exactly had happened here…) the pliers were in a way, worse, even though the tub would probably cost 200 dollars? 300 dollars? That was more then the 40 something you spent on those pliers, but it was not entirely about the price tags.

You bought those as a gift for yourself, something that you rarely do. And when you do, you make a point of getting something really great, really well-made that you can use, with any luck for the rest of your life, and then hopefully, you could give it away to someone. There is a phrase for something like that, heirloom quality. You remember once discussing planned obsolescence with your Grandfather. During the conversation, the phrase heirloom quality came up, which he had not heard before. When you explained it to him, he chuckled, and replied that his generation had different phrase for it. “Back in the day, we would call something like that ‘Not Shit’”.

It has been almost a year since he passed. One of the reasons you decided to go to college here is because the old dairy is just a town over. You wanted to be able to spend more time with him. You did, but you had no idea how little he had left. Still, he made it 86 years old without taking care of himself at all. He outlived all his old enemies, and several generations of naysayers. He managed to keep the farm, even as the city grew into what was the old farming district. He would say that there probably were not too many international airports that shared boarders with a dairy farm. In the end, it took terminal Kidney failure, Liver cancer and Heart disease to put him in the ground. He was something else. He was heirloom quality.

>>4224844
He was not shit.

>>4224847
You sigh. You seem to be doing that a lot, but hopefully, that should be the last one for the night. It should have been long enough, soaking in the tub. You glance around the Wet Lab. Nothing is out of place. You raise your right hand. You had given it some thought previously, and you decided that that to recreate what happened as accurately as possible, you will knock the Silent Bone in, instead of taking it in your hand and submerging it. So you bat at the Bone with your hand, like a cat might bat at a toy. It leaves it perch on the rim of the tub, and tumbles into the bath.

After eight mutes, the ninth sings. The Noise this Bone makes isn’t as loud, but the brilliance of the spots and dots is even brighter then before. Curious. You still need to figure out how the Silent Bones moved, but at the very least, you have established how to recreate one of the phenomena. Repeatability is one of the cornerstones of scientific inquiry.

>You have successfully repeated the activation conditions for Nascent Osseoperception. In the process of doing so, you have raised its refinement from level 1 to level 2.

>Congratulations! You have managed to successfully recreate a phenomena. In fact, you should consider it an ability now. If anyone has any additional hypotheses that they would like to test out, then this would be a good time. Otherwise, we have a long list of tests to catch up on.

>>4224843
One of these days, I am going to learn how to format properly, and it is going to be glorious. Also you returned the Noisy Bone to its side of the sink. I just realized that the passage doesn't specify that.

>>4224853
Some new experiments come to mind now that we have two Noisy Bones.

>Experiment 1: Touch the 2 Noisy Bones together above water while you sit in the bath

>Experiment 2: Touch the Noisy Bones together submerged in the water while you sit in the bath

>Experiment 3: Dry off completed and touch the Noisy Bones together

I'd also really advocate for trying to spread the PGF from the pliers to other bits of metal, so see if they spread it, or if it can only be spread by water.

The other anon also had really great experiment ideas. I do not remember them cause there were a shit ton, but we can definitely start on those if it isn't too late in the evening (in game time).

You take several minutes to listen to this Noisy Bone. Besides being quieter then the first, this Noisy Bone has a noticeably different sound. The original Noisy Bone sounded like metal being strained, that was Punctuated by a second and distinct sound, that which sound reminiscent of tuning forks being hit against metal. The sound that sounded like hums would give way to the sound that sounded like groans, until the hums shouted out again. Compared to this new Noisy Bone, which only has the sound that sounds like metal being strained. You’ve sat here for the better part of five minutes now, still in the bathtub, listening to the sound. There is noticeable distortion, but it can still be plainly heard.

There is another development with the water. The temperature has continued to rise, noticeably. It isn’t scalding, you aren’t uncomfortable. But you drew this bath what, two and a half hours ago? At this point, it isn’t just staying warm, it is noticeably warmer than when all of this started. You should check the time, which means you are going to have to get out of the bath. The first Noisy Bone quieted a bit when removed from the bathtub. And for that matter, you haven’t heard it since. Now that you have at two, you can run experiments, one on the other.

What made the sound of one Bone louder than the sound of the other? You stand up in the bathtub and dry yourself off with the already contaminated towel. You deliberately stay in the bath as you dry the entirety of your body off. You rest one leg on the rim of the tub, on the enamel portion as you dry it. As it is removed from the water, the new Noisy Bone does become noticeably quieter. You make a point look over at the experimental group of Silent Bones. All eight are accounted for. And now that you are standing, you can see into the takeout box that has the control group in it. All 4 of those are accounted for as well. You take the left leg out of the bathtub, and careful to not needlessly spread any of this warmed PGF distorted water step directly onto the bathmat. A bit more time with the towel, and you are noticeably drier, if not completely dry. That is the issue with using a towel that still hasn’t dried completely. You have a choice here:

>>4225451
>Do you use another towel, which will presumably spread PGF distortion to it as well? (Character will be completely dried, produces a second Contaminated (PGF Distortion) Towel)

>Do you spend the time to air dry yourself, shaking off what you can safely onto the bathmat or the distorted towel and let the air to the rest? (Character will be completely dried in 30 minutes)

>Do you accept that any clothes that were brought in here are forfeit, and use the contaminated clothes to dry off? They still a bit wet, but they aren’t at wet as the distorted towel. Unfortunately, they are not as good at drying as the towel either. (QM rolls d20, on 18 19 and 20 the character is still slightly wet, allowing contamination to spread. Roll is hidden from players. Character will assume they are dry unless (or until) they have reason to believe otherwise.)

>Do you assume that it is good enough? I mean, you have been walking around all day after getting wet. The only time any of the PGF distorted water actually spread contamination was when they were really soaked or submerged in it. With exclusions! (QM rolls d10, on 8 9 10 the character is still slightly wet, allowing contamination to spread. Roll is hidden from players. Character will assume they are dry unless (or until) they have reason to believe otherwise.)

>>4225454
>>Do you use another towel, which will presumably spread PGF distortion to it as well? (Character will be completely dried, produces a second Contaminated (PGF Distortion) Towel)

Its not like we have any way to get rid of the PGF water right now, so there is no harm is using another towel.

I would be extremely cautious about dryness and make sure we don't contaminate our clothes. No taking chances until we figure out how much PGFness spreads (preferably by running experiments of touching the pliers to other metal and/or touching the towel to another piece of cloth)

new towel, we'll probably need multiple towels at some point anyways, and they seem to dry out. this is also a good time to examine how exactly the PGF spreads on textiles. are the PGF patches larger than the wet patches on the old towel/contaminated clothes?

File: Towel Identification Reference.jpg (79 KB, 900x473)

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Working it through your head, you decided that the spread of the distortion has been as minimal as it was in large part, because you were dry for most of the time. So it stands to reason that being dry is worth it, as far as the spread of the distortion is concerned. Even if that means you are going to effectively sacrifice one of your few remaining towels. When you went off to college, you bought a recommended room set, against your better judgement, largely at the insistence of your mother. Part of that room set was the towels that you still have. It came with two bath sheets, two bath towels and two washcloths, all in a deep dark Navy Blue. A deep dark Navy Blue that bled like a stuck pig every single time you washed them. Along the way, you picked up a third washcloth, in a light Steel Gray, that look like it was produced by the same company that made the towels for the room set. You can’t remember if you pilfered it from the laundry room’s lost and found, which was fair game as far as you were concerned, or if you actually accidentally took it home, but that isn’t here or there.

What is here or there is that you have a limited number of towels to deal with some spreading phenomena that easily effects water. Which is not a good combination. You are really going to need to address that somehow. Sitting all rolled up on an old wooden tv tray that you use as a rough replacement of the lid of the hamper you keep in the corner of the room is a selection of your remaining towels. Besides the bath sheets, one which you have tacked up over the window in the Wet Lab for privacy, and the bath towel that you have been using tonight, all of your towels are right here. After a moment of deliberation, you grab the stray Steel Gray wash cloth. There are three obvious reasons for the choice. First, you are almost dry, so you should be able to finish up with a small cloth. Save the bigger stuff for later. Second, being lighter than the other towels should help you determine when the distortion is affecting the washcloth. Third, you didn’t pay for it.

Reflecting on the limited practical differences between stealing and accidentally taking someone else property, you finish drying yourself down.

>>4226766
>Stress (Level 1)
>Time until Fatigue (Level 1) applied, less than 3 hours.

Well, now you are dry. You head out of the Wet Lab and into the bedroom area of the loft. You left your phone in here, which now that you think about it, breaks the rules that you set for the Wet Lab. Once something is brought into the Wet Lab, you decided that it shouldn’t leave, even if there are no signs of distortion, or anything else Strange going on with it. You only have one phone though.

And there is one uncomfortable thought. If after tonight, there could be Strangeness that you find outside of the Wet Lab, outside, far outside of your apartment, out in the World. A phone might be useful in documenting things, but if you decide to sequester it in the Wet Lab permanently, then you won't be able to use it. You look over the phone in your hands right now, as intently as you have ever looked at it. You don't see anything that looks like the PGF distortion anywhere on it. And because it is a discrete object, unlike water, and it has sharp and tight geometry, unlike a towel, or even clothes, it would be much harder to overlook the distortion. Not to mention that half of the reason that you overlooked the distortion was because you didn't know that it could spread. You have a decision to make here.

Thinking about all of this, you pick up the phone and check the time: it is now 7:40 pm. You were soaking for longer then you realized, but it still wasn’t that bad. You are getting noticeably tired though, and you don’t know how you are going to be able to sleep, at least until you understand what the hell happened with the runaways in the Experimental Group. Some but not all of them moved.

You yawn. Boy, you really are tired. You are also beginning to feel hungry all of a sudden.

>The phone stays (in the Wet Lab)

>The phone goes (with you out into the World)

>Additional consideration; do you eat something to address your Hunger?

>>4226788
>With the developments from the previous post, your status has been updated to reflect the most accurate information:
>Stress (Level 1)
>Hunger (Level 1)
>Time until Fatigue (Level 1) applied, 2 hours and 20 minutes.

File: No Collars Graphic.jpg (42 KB, 484x358)

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Well, regardless of what you decide about the phone, or eating, that does not mean you cannot go back to running the experiments that you have been trying to get around to. You head back into the Wet Lab, with your phone in hand. There are three experiments that you want to run, on the two Noisy Bones. First, you want to touch the two Noisy Bones together when you and them are both out of the bathtub. Then, you want to touch the two Noisy Bones together when they are in the bathtub, and you are out of it. Finally, you want to get back into the tub, and try touching them together, after a bit of soaking. When you were drying off with the washcloth, you placed the New Noisy Bone down on the rim of the bathtub, right near where you were keeping your clothes, and the other towel. The unfortunate thing with the Bones is that they are all fairly similar looking. Especially the two Noisy Bones, because you pick out the second Bone as it looked the most similar to the first out of all of the remaining Bones in the Control group. There should be some way to identify them from one another. Come to think about it, that would be really helpful if there are any more runaways. Well, that is another decision.

>(Write-In) Decide on a way to identify the Bones from one another. Anything that is typical or practical for a college student to have in their own apartment will be accepted. As a counterexample, it would not be either typical or practical for a college student to have radio collars in their apartment to use to identify or track the Bones (let alone practical to use on Chicken Bones).

>What is not broken should not be fixed. You have been able to keep track of everything so far. Not to mention, you have no idea how modifying or drawing on the Bones is going to affect them.

>>4226827
>Apologies, the second choice in the previous post was not explicit enough. By voting for "What is not Broken should not be fixed", you are electing to continue without developing an identification scheme for the Bones.

You are dry, so, it is time to start the first experiment. You take the new Noisy Bone off of where you left it on the bathtub, by your clothes, your old bath towel, and the stray washcloth. All completely separate from the Silent Bones in the experimental group. You make Contact with the new Noisy Bone. As you expected, the Noisy Bone doesn't make any Noise when it is not in Contact with the water.

With the new Noisy Bone in hand, you head over to the sink. As you pass the tub, you make a point of counting all of the Bones laid out along the rim of the bathtub. All eight are there still. And at the sink, on opposite sides sit the first Noisy Bone and the pliers. The new Noisy Bone is sitting in your right hand, so with your left you reach out to the older Noisy Bone, and make contact.

>>4226788
goes. maybe keep it on a ceramic plate when we don't carry it, and carry it in a specific pocket that we inspect when we come home.

unless someone else suggests a reason not to, eat something.

is this a reasonable time to be hungry, given that we ate just after the start of the quest?

>>4226827
later: wear down a small section of the first bone with sandpaper or a file, or something like that. mildly damage it. save the dust.

rationale: we can't add anything, because they'll probably be in contact with PGF a lot. and we can apparently make more. if damaging the bone changes it, it's an experiment. specifically damage the first bone so if we repeat previous tests using the second bone, we'll know it's not the damage that's making it act differently.


as usual, good luck later people.

And what a Contact it is. You have not even touched them together, and at this rate, you aren't sure if you want to. The Noise has returned, and it is noticeably louder than before. The older Noisy Bone is singing its completely song, the groaning of metal under strain and the periodic hums that Punctuate the Noise. As far as the songs are concerned, however, the most interesting development what appears to be a directional effect. Unlike earlier, where the Noise simply washed over you from all directions, now, with two Noisy Bones, one in each hand, the Noise that the older Noisy Bone makes comes from the left side and the Noise that newer Noisy Bone makes come from the right side. This corresponds to the hands that you are holding the Bones in.

File: This is unironically us, (...).jpg (36 KB, 381x378)

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>>4226992
More pressing then the audio interaction between the two Bones, however, is the physical reaction between them. They are Shaking now. Violently. And they are not just being difficult to hold on to, they are Shaking your Bones as well. As you stand in front of the mirror, you can see yourself. It looks like you are having some sort of seizure, though it feels different. Worse probably, but you are not sure.

Imagine that every single bone in your body, skull and teeth included, instantaneously became a "Funny Bone". Now imagine that every "Funny Bone" was hit simultaneously. Hard.

And not once, but periodically. In time with the "tuning fork" hitting the "straining metal bar" in the song of the older Noisy Bone. It takes about to the count of four for the hum of the "tuning fork" to fade into the groan of the "straining metal bar", at which point, it would repeat. Without fail, about every four seconds. You vaguely remember learning that the "Funny Bone" was not actually a Bone at all, instead it was just some Nerve. So, you suppose it is possible that instead of interacting with your Bones, the Noisy Bones were affecting your Nerves instead of your Bones. However, there seems to be something going on with Bones here, so you are inclined to think that whatever unfathomably Strange thing is going on here, the effect of it works on the Bones of your body, and not the Nerves. At this point however, you are splitting hairs here. Whether it is all your Nerves or all your Bones, the takeaway is that it is all of them.

And it isn’t pleasant. You are leaning on the sink, hard, even as you try to stabilize yourself on it. While in your current condition, you don’t think you can tell for sure, but you think that your Bones are physically vibrating inside your body, in addition to the effects of the “Funny Bone”. You are having a hard time standing upright. You are having a hard time thinking. As you begin to feel bile rising in your throat, you look down into the sink, preparing on the off chance that you vomit. You notice a few drops of blood.

>>4226996
Your immediate thought is that it is a nosebleed. But as you turn to wipe your nose on your shoulder to check, you notice your reflection. It is your ears that are bleeding.

>Through this brutal, hands on experimentation, you have determined enough about the interaction of the Strangeness between existing abilities to have developed an entirely new ability, unlocking Nascent Osseovibration (level 0). When two Noisy Bones are in Contact with each other, the effect causes the pair to Shake. Any Silent Bones that are also in Contact with the pair will be vibrated. When this ability is used on a pair of Noisy Bones, then they are referred to as Funny Bones.

>Unfortunately, the physical effect of using even Nascent Funny Bones on oneself is a great deal to bear. For this time, please roll 2d6. The first roll determines physical effects of the Funny Bones. 1 2 3 and 4 mean that there are no lasting physical modifiers. 5 means that the character eardrums were burst and applies the What? modifier. Hearing will be negatively affected for d20 days. Anything that the character would automatically hear now has a 5% chance of being missed. 6 means that the character has suffered a concussion and applies the Huh? modifier. Anything that the character would automatically deduce now has a 5% chance of being missed. The second d6 is for a Panic Test, where 1 and 2 are safe, 3 and 4 are panicking (an action is failed, or something obvious is missed), and 5 and 6 means that in addition to panicking, a Breaking Test must be rolled. However, going forward, now that the character knows what to expect, the Panic Test will be changed to 1 2 3 4 are safe, 5 means that the character is panicking and 6 means that in addition to panicking, a Breaking Test must be rolled.

>One final point. We still have not touched the Funny Bones together, as originally intended. We have a choice now, to continue with the experiment (assuming we pass the Panic Test), to simply continue to hold onto the Funny Bones, and attempt to make further observations, or finally, to simply drop them, and to try another experiment.

>>4227003
>With the developments from the previous post, your status has been updated to reflect the most accurate information:

>Stress (Level 1)
>Hunger (Level 1)
>Time until Fatigue (Level 1) applied, less than 2 hours and 20 minutes.

>We are looking for 2d6. Good Luck!

Rolled 4, 3 = 7 (2d6)

>>4227008

>>4227003
looks like we panic. also do not attempt to repeat or continue the experiment right now. that seems dangerous.

try to drop just one of the bones (or one on the floor and one on the sink), so they won't continue to react with each other on the floor.

before we continue experimenting with vibration (or damage the bones really), we might want to test what counts as touching or not touching the bones. so try picking one bone up with various thicknesses of cloth or paper, until we hopefully don't hear the noise.

a safe-ish way to test vibration (and if it even works when we're not touching the bones) is to try pushing them together on a towel on the floor, using a wooden spoon or something.

>guess: we'll get less/no vibration if we use two bones that have milder noises.

maybe take a couple of hours one of the days to experiment with which parts of the NB creation process actually matter. (is the relaxation period necessary? is the amount of water? can we do it with bigger bones and bones from other animals? can we do it multiple times in a row?) once we have a couple more, we can test with ones with milder noises.

Definitely abandon the further experiments of touching the bones together. It is a cool experiment, but I don't want us to actually die.

However, we should try touching one of the Noisy Bones to a PGF'd piece of cloth or metal to see what happens.

>>4227291
>>4227439
>>4227590
>Okay. I'm going to get dinner, and then I will start writing. Look for the first post of the night around 8pm Eastern Time.

>Stress (Level 1)
>Hunger (Level 1)
>Time until Fatigue (Level 1) applied, less than 2 hours and 20 minutes.

You do not consider yourself squeamish, in fact, quite the opposite. You were a member of your middle school’s Science Club, which every year, when students returned after Christmas Break, would dissect animals. Some teachers would give you extra credit for turning it into a project. Admittedly, it was a hard sell for you to do it that first year. Going up to the seventh and eighth grade wing as the only fifth grader was difficult for you. Asking older students for help was difficult for you. And when it came time to do the actual dissection project with the club, that was very difficult for you. You have a distinct memory of standing over the Dogfish, still in the bag with the perseverative on a tray. You were so overwhelmed; all you did the first day was take the small Shark out of the bags it came in and get it onto a tray.

Hunched over the sink, panicking at the sight of your own blood, you feel like you are still that kid. Like you never grew up, never got over your squeamishness, never … progressed. You cannot deal with this, even if all this shit is really happening, the more you try to understand, the more dangerous and confusing all of this seems to get. You … you have dropped the Funny Bones. The Noise stops, and the spots and dots remain as they were. You half sit and half collapse on the ground in front of the sink, breathing heavily.

While the Punctuating impact that happened in time with the Punctuating hums as gone, the feeling of having a skeleton made entirely of Funny Bones is still definitely there. Though it is beginning to slowly fade back to normal. Emphasis on the word, slowly. With your hands free, you immediately put your fingers up to your ears. You softly rustle your fingers, and a wave of relief washes over you, as both ears can still hear. You have a first aid kit in your bedroom area, and the manual that goes with in your office area. When you cannot remember what exactly it said about bleeding from the ears, you decide to go consult it, after you check on the Funny Bones, of course. That is going to require standing up though. You turn to the bathtub, to help you push yourself up.

>>4228531
Five of the experimental group are back in the bathtub.

>>4228533
You look at the Bones, sitting in the bottom of the bathtub. You are glad you cannot see what you look like right now, because if you could, you feel that you would have some stupid look on your face right now. Going over everything in your head, you do not think that you were Shaking enough to knock the Bones off the rim into the tub. And you know for certain that you did not leave five Silent Bones in the bathtub. Ultimately, it is a weary relief that fills you. Assuming that you didn’t knock them in with your shaking, which is probable, considering that there are Silent Bones that didn’t get knocked in, and that there are other objects on the rim of the bathtub that were not knocked in, then you have adequate proof that there is some sort of mechanism that allows Silent Bones that have been affected by PGF distorted water to move.

Good. Good! If the distorted Silent Bones can move back into the bathtub, then that means that you are not misremembering things, that you can rely on your memory. And while you may not completely understand the mechanic, you have managed to isolate and reproduce it. As long as you are only questioning your sanity, and not your sanity and your memory, you should be able to manage to get to sleep.

> (Character is no longer prevented from going to bed. Going to bed will prevent a Fatigue Malus from being applied. Remember, when the character has both a Fatigue Malus and a Stress Malus, every two hours, they must do a Breaking Test)

It takes maybe a minute, but you manage to get back on your legs. You look over to the site of your last experiment. The pliers were heavy enough to remain siting where they were, and two Funny Bones fell into the bowl of the sink, but they are not moving, and thankfully, they are not touching either. Unthankfully, now you cannot tell them apart from one another. Well as long as you touch them one at a time, you should be able to tell the differences, based on their songs, right?

>>4228605
God, this has been a long night. What time is it? And why are you so hungry? If you had not been dealing with the apparently magical food scraps of your dinner this entire night, you would think you have not had any food at all today. Oh, are your ears still bleeding? … Yeah. How are you supposed to bandage ears? Maybe the first aid manual has something on that. And if it does not, you have your paramedic friend, Big Nick. You could ask him what you are supposed to do, but if he got it in his head that something was wrong, he might come over, or worse, call it in.

>There are a lot of things that you can do next, but ultimately, you can only do one thing at a time. You must pick one of the following options. Once completed, you can come back and pick another option, but remember, if you aren’t in bed by 10:00pm, you get a Fatigue Malus. So pick out the rest of the night wisely.

>Figure out which Noisy Bone is which.

>Remove the runaways in the experimental group from the bathtub and attempt to determine the mechanism that allows them to move.

>Address physiological concerns. You are bleeding and you are starving. Address both to the best of your ability. (Subvote: do you attempt to get medical advice from your friend, Big Nick?)

>>4228607
As you are finally back on your feet, you head over to your phone to check the time. It is now 8:00pm.

>With the developments from the previous posts, your status has been updated to reflect the most accurate information:

>Stress (Level 1)
>Hunger (Level 2)
>Time until Fatigue (Level 1) applied: 2 hours

>>4228607
>>Address physiological concerns. You are bleeding and you are starving. Address both to the best of your ability

Let's get some grub and hit the sack. The bones are still going to be there tomorrow... I mean, I hope they are

>do you attempt to get medical advice from your friend, Big Nick?

Heck to the no. Big Nick and his massive dick can keep out of our apartment until we know more about what is going on.

>>4228613

>eat. try not to touch our ears, and stay up until they stop bleeding (if they bleed for more than an hour, maybe it's time to ask Nick). try to make sure we sleep on our back. like maybe put a sofa back pillow between our legs when we go to sleep, or put an upside down stool in our bed and stick one of our legs between its legs.


suggesting experimental group rename: Runaways.
because we may have other experimental groups later
experimental group last seen before moving posts, for reference:
>>4217809
>>4218649
>>4226857


hypothesis: Runaways returning to the bathtub is a "cost" of using some of our powers.

did any of our powers work different when the bones were in the tub?

test: try not to use or powers for a while, see if they move anyways. this seems to be what we're doing right now.


test for later:
hypothesis: Runaways moving happens on regular interval/Runaways moving does not happen if they're weighed down.

the first exposure of the Runaways it says we "dunk" them. was this one at a time?

test: make sure at least two runaways are on the toiled, and are dry. put something on top of them so there'll be a sound when one or more of them move. something like a pencil across two of them. then just be within earshot doing other things.

going to sleep IRL.

>>4228631
>>4228673
>Alright, I am calling it for taking care of physiological concerns, and then calling it a night. Resuming...

>>4230462
This has certainly been one of the Strangest nights of your life, and now that you have convinced yourself that you can rely on your memory, if not your sanity, you are finally in position to take care of yourself. First things first, the bleeding ears. It does not seem particularly bad, especially because you can still hear out of them, but you have never bled from the ears before. You have had ear infections and bug bites, but never bleeding.

Thinking about the delicate nature of ears makes you think back to your second year of Science Club. That year, your homeroom teacher was not planning on giving out extra credit for participating in the dissection project. You decided to wow her into giving you the point by attempting a more complicated subject, a fetal Piglet. In your drive to get just a few extra credit points, you managed to pull of the most complete dissection that the Science Club had seen. You managed to remove all the Organs in excellent condition, even going as far as cutting the Membranes on the Small Intestine so that it could be stretched out in a line and measured for length. You managed to remove the Lens of the Eye and managed to get through to the Brain without damaging it. You were the first in the club to remove the Spine with the Brain still attached. The final thing you attempted was your one failure; you attempted to remove the specimen’s Eardrum. Both times you attempted it, you destroyed the damn thing, the first time probing around for it, and the second time trying to remove it.

The time you spent in Science Club over the years gave you a level of understanding that could be considered Beyond a Layman’s of Physiology, Biology and Butchery. And with this understanding comes a healthy fear of internal bleeding. By the time you get the first aid kit, the bleeding has seemed to have clotted. You a cotton ball, tear it in two, and then gently stuff it in your ear. The first aid manual does not have anything on ear injuries at all, so you go onto your laptop and check WebMD. There is an article titled “Why is My Ear Bleeding”. Your first instinct is that this is not going to be that relevant, considering that you know why your ear is bleeding. But after a second, you realize that while you are certain that contact with the Funny Bones is what caused the bleed, you aren’t exactly sure what is bleeding and how it was hurt, so this article is definitely worth your time.

>>4230655
>I realized that there was a typographical error in this post, you are bleeding from both ears, and have place half of a cotton ball in each.

>>4230655
There are 6 possible causes listed, three of which obviously do not apply. The remaining three, Head Injury, Torn Eardrum and Changes in Air or Water Pressure, are all candidates. The Noise could have been responsible for the bleed by tearing the Eardrum. The Shaking could potentially have given you a head injury of some sort. And while it is the least likely of the three, it is possible that the Strangeness caused a change in the pressure in the Wet Lab, that you did not notice for all of the Shaking and Noise of the Funny Bones. The information on pressure or sound damage is not that conclusive, while it says that most injuries to the eardrum will heal on their own, it also says several times to contact a doctor. The information on a head injury is written in a noticeably strident tone. Bleeding from the ears can in fact indicate that there has been some trauma to the Brain, which comes with a really nasty list of potential symptoms and outcomes.
Grimacing over your laptop, you take the cotton out of one of your ears. There is some blood present on the wad, but very little. It is possible that the bleeding has already stopped. But if it is a head injury and not an ear injury, then it is also possible that the blood is pooling elsewhere. You have another choice to make here.

>Go ahead as planned: Eat something, do one final check of the Wet Lab, and then go to bed.

>Go ahead almost as planned: Eat something, do one final check of the Wet Lab, but stay up for a bit to make sure that your condition does not worsen, and you do not develop any symptoms of head injury. This will require you to roll one Breaking Test, which now has a 10% pass rate.

>Real Moonman hours: Accepting that an hour or so may not be enough time for the effects of a head injury to manifest, stay up until midnight. This will require you to roll two Breaking Tests, which now have a 10% pass rate.

>Phone-a-friend: This is much more serious than you originally thought it was going to be. While Big Nick probably will not be able to tell you anything you did not learn from the WebMD, odds are that he would be better at diagnosing conditions then you are.

>Doctor’s orders. This is potentially lethal. As little as you want to go to a hospital during a pandemic, you are not willing to play with your health like this. Besides, who is to say that you didn’t get hit in the head at some point today and are now delusional or something?

if(
Nick live nearby enough that we're not a massive inconvenience? Nick probably got an otoscope?
):
as a player, kinda excited to have to show someone our shitty magic.
>Phone-a-friend

else if(
breaking can be removed with time, that is less than four days per.
):
we're bleeding from both ears. I feel like if something shook our brain so hard it's bleeding, it'd either be a single ear or bad enough to notice we aren't thinking straight. so not sure he'd be helpful over the phone.
>Go ahead almost as planned

else:
no vote


if we decide to lie, I suggest saying improperly adjusted headphones startled us and caused us to bump our head.

as a person who only catches the start of the quest, I feel like more information about how breaking works and who Nick is should have been shared before we were asked to make this decision.

>>4230664
>>Go ahead almost as planned: Eat something, do one final check of the Wet Lab, but stay up for a bit to make sure that your condition does not worsen, and you do not develop any symptoms of head injury. This will require you to roll one Breaking Test, which now has a 10% pass rate.

I've never gone to a doctor in real life and I'm not going to have our protag go to one now. That being said, sleeping off a potential concussion is a terrible idea, so let's stay up a little bit.

>>4230918
>Two very fair points.

>More information about Breaking:

>Breaking is the mechanic where the stress associated with dealing with the Strangeness accumulates. Breaking, represented by Stress Maluses can be removed through two means; it can time out, or whatever that resulted in the Breaking Test being run was definitively and positively resolved. One week after receiving the Stress Malus: Stress (Level 1), a single Inverse Breaking Test is rolled, where if you roll a d100 for a Non-Prime Number (75% odds) the Malus is removed. If a prime number comes up, then the test can be re-rolled once every day. Rules for Stress Malus: Stress (Level 2) and Stress Malus: Stress (Level 3) require a single Inverse Breaking Test to be rolled, where if you roll a d100 for a Non-Fibonacci number (90% odds).

>For the current Stress Malus to be removed by resolving it, as opposed to simply waiting it out, the character would need to determine the all of mechanisms for the movement phenomenon. In more general cases, everything has to be understood about whatever phenomenon caused the Breaking Test to be rolled.

>About the named NPC "Big Nick"

Big Nick is a fellow college student, and you met through a mutual acquaintance in a General Chemistry class. At 27 years of age, he is one of the oldest students you have met. And at 6'5" and 400+ pounds, he is certainly the biggest student you have met. While he did party through his teenage years, as well as his early (and mid) 20's, he did manage to be educated, licensed and find a job as a Paramedic during this time. He regularly drinks, regularly smokes weed; and on special occasions will snort cocaine. He genuinely seems to enjoy your company, and has helped you out in the past, much more than anyone else you have met at college.

>So, considering that if you are looking to wait out the Breaking, then I guess that means we are looking at two votes for: Go ahead almost as planned. Resuming...

>>4233000
Holy cow, Nick is an absolute unit. Thank you OP for including this mountain of a man in the quest

Hey guys, after I wrote the additional information on the Breaking and Big Nick, I sort of drifted off to sleep. Anyway, I'll have a what should be yesterday's post up late tonight, maybe after midnight, and then I should be back to the regularly irregular schedule of posting around 8pm Eastern Standard Time going forward.

>Stress (Level 1)
>Hunger (Level 2)
>Time until Fatigue (Level 1) applied, less than 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Despite how tired and drained you are, the fear of a Brain injury is enough that you are not willing to just go to straight to bed, after eating. Closing out of WebMD, you shutdown your laptop for now, and head into the kitchen. You really do not feel that it is life threatening enough to receive medical attention, be it from a hospital or a friend.

The lights are off in this portion of the loft, but the green glow from the digital clock on the oven returns your gaze, reading 8:00. As you hit the light switch, you become acutely aware of how hungry you are as you walk up to the refrigerator. When you let go of the door from the refrigerator, it continues to swing open. The spot that the refrigerator sits on is uneven, and if you do not close it all the way, sometimes the door will swing open again. You have, at least three separate times thought you had closed the refrigerator up, left the kitchen area and returned, only to find the damned thing swinging open. It is frustrating, not to mention a health concern, especially considering that a weekend warrior-built in-law apartment above a garage faces some tangible concern regarding rodents and other vermin.

You have always made a point of trying to address problems as they arise, as you have had (and continue to have) issues with procrastination. Resolving to spend some of the down time after dinner, while waiting for any of the other symptoms of a Brain injury to manifest to address the refrigerator door, you look over what remains in the refrigerator to eat. There are Russet Potatoes, some Lettuce and a few MacIntosh Apples in the crisper drawer. You eat the Potatoes for breakfast, heated in the microwave with a little sliver of butter and some dollar store pepper. Not exactly a typical breakfast, but you found that it was an appropriate combination of quick, hot, cheap and tasty. You are actually really hungry though. No, you are definitely going to want a full meal here. Hmm…

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>>4236707
Oh! Pork! You prefer the taste of Pork to Chicken generally, enough that you are willing to pay the relatively higher price per pound for it. You only buy the marked down meats, so you usually bring home several different cuts for each shopping trip, so you do not always remember what exactly you have. As you are pulling the stack of Styrofoam trays out of the refrigerator for inspection, you realize that the top tray is a Loin Chop, also referred to as a Porterhouse Pork Chop. A Bone-in cut of meat.

You did not realize that there were any other Bones in the house. The obvious question: can you make Noisy Bones from Pig Bones as well as Chicken Bones? For now, you set that aside, having had enough to do with Bones for the night. You select one of the cuts of Pork that does not have any Bones, as well as a larger potato. The meal you cook is relatively straight forward. Cheap Olive Oil, some Sea Salt and Rosemary into a skillet. As the skillet warms up, quarter then eighth the Russet Potato. Add the Cut of Pork and Potato into the pan, then a touch more of the Olive Oil, Sea Salt and Rosemary on the Pork and Potatoes, this time also putting powder garlic on the Pork Chop. Flip the Chop and apply another touch to the other side. While doing this, make sure that the non-skin sides of the Potato eighths are getting equal time in the oil and juice. Once everything is cooked, don’t forget to let it sit a minute or so, out of the hot skillet and in the serving dish to let the meat finish cooking properly, and definitely don’t forget to shut off the stovetop.

You can feel the warmth of the meal spread through you as you eat. Sitting at the kitchen table, for the first time tonight, you feel kind of cold. It is at this moment that you realize you still have not gotten dressed yet. Embarrassed, you dart back into your room and dress again. Returning, you finish up the meal, using the last of the Potato eighths to sop up any remaining juices on the plate. Once done, you head over to the sink, and wash it all up in the massive kitchen sink. The sink, like all of the other appliances and fixtures in this loft were all presumably purchased as architectural salvage. If you had to take a guess, you would be willing to say that this sink was originally intended as a utility sink for a laundry room or something, rather than a kitchen. Even with the partition down the middle, dividing the structure of the sink into two basins, you could still sit the microwave flat in one side of the sink comfortably. You certainly do not want to use this sink for experiments, considering that you keep the food a matter of a few feet away, but it has gotten you thinking about expanding your “facilities”.

>>4236713
Once you have concluded washing everything down, including the seats you were sitting on naked without realizing, you try to take stock of how you are feeling.

>Stress (Level 1)
>Time until Fatigue (Level 1) applied, less than 2 hours.

Well, you certainly are not feeling hungry anymore, which is an improvement, certainly. But now that you are not distracting yourself with busywork, you cannot help but feel a bit worn down by all of this. There is nothing that you would like to do more at this moment then curl up in bed. The fact that you are staying up to make sure that you do not keel over dead from a bleed in the Brain is not improving your disposition. As time continues to pass, and you still feel Lucid, you are becoming more and more certain that these phenomena are not imagined. For the very first time, you begin to realize that it probably would be better if they were.

You spend a minute drawing up something to keep the refrigerator door closed. You have some junk you salvaged around the place, and an idea has come to you. You will take a drawer slider and screw it to the top of the refrigerator door, and then you will screw a plate to the top of the refrigerator body, with an eye bolt sticking out of the top. Then you will connect an elastic therapy band that you got kicking around between them. Getting a lasting connection that is not going to rip the band is probably going to be tricky, but regardless, you have got a pretty good plan. You are not particularly worried about being held responsible for damaging the refrigerator, as your landlord is a stumpy 5’3”. Besides, who looks at the top of a refrigerator? As long as you fill the holes with putty, no one will ever notice. Probably.

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>>4236715
Drawing up the sketch of your contraption does manage to make you feel a bit better about your ability to deal with problems, but as you leave the kitchen area for the night, you find yourself reflecting that there is significant difference between a refrigerator door not closing completely and some manner of Strange unprecedented phenomena. Looking over your shoulder, the clock on the oven reads 9:40. It feels like you have been up for days honestly. Waiting around to see if you might be dying is not exactly a relaxing pastime. While you were cleaning up after the second dinner of the night, you decided that your phone was simply to important to leave sitting in the Wet Lab; so you are going to make your first exception to the Wet Lab’s rules; the phone may come and go. Still, you are not discounting the chance that it may present issues with spreading the PGF distortion in the future. Porcelain does not seem to be susceptible to distortion like other substances, and as such, you are going to leave your phone on a plate whenever it is not the Wet Lab, whenever this is possible. You strip down for the last time tonight and enter the Wet Lab to retrieve the phone.

Before you turn on the lights, you notice that the bathtub seems to have some sort of luminosity. It is very faint, but you can make out a glow. Looking to examine this further, step out and turn the lights of in the bedroom area, so now that all lights in the loft are off. There is no denying that there is something about the bathtub. You turn the lights on in the Wet Lab.

More Runaways.

All the Bones that were in the experimental group are presumably back in the tub. Presumably, because they are not laid out along the rim of the bathtub anymore, and your clothes are in the tub as well and are covering up the portion of the bathtub’s bottom where the Bones appeared last time. And it was not like the clothes somehow fell in either. You had been keeping them with the towels on the rim of the tub, where you laid your head, opposite of the drain. On the far side of the tub, opposite of the drain. Now, they were dead center in the middle of the tub, at the bottom. Which come to think about it, is Strange in its own right. The clothes were not floating, as would be expected, rather, they were lying nearly flat on the bottom. So flat that you could see the outline of the Bones as your shirt was seemingly pressed around them now that you looked closely.

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>4236723
It seems that the ability to Runaway is not exclusive to Silent Bones. It is so late, and you are so tired. It is going to be hard enough to get to sleep with everything that has happened, but this is not helping. Was the PGF distorted water always faintly luminescent like this? Or is this new? And those fucking Runaway Bones. And clothes, Runaway Clothes now too.

What the fuck.

>Regardless of what choice you make here, you are going to be staying up past 10:00pm, which means that you are going to be rolling another Breaking Test. Once Fatigue (Level 1) is reached, then there is 6 hours before Fatigue (Level 2) comes active. When Fatigue (Level 2) is active and there are any Stress Maluses, then every hour a Breaking Test must be rolled. And remember, once three Stress Maluses are applied, then any failed Breaking Tests beyond that will result in the Strangeness warping the character.

> Besides the Breaking Tests that they force when Stress Maluses are active, the condition of being at any level of Fatigue can affect our characters ability to interact with the Strange and Mundane worlds.

>Please Choose:

>Mr. Sandman, Bring Me a Dream: You are not going to solve all this nonsense in one night. As tired as you are, there is no way you are going to calm down enough to sleep before 10:00pm, so could an Anon or a group of Anons please roll a number of d100’s that correspond to the roll in this post.

>Mr. Sandman, Kindly Fuck Off: This is unexpected. You deciding to go to bed hinged on no new developments in the Wet Lab. Now that this is no longer the case, you can not just fall asleep. You are going to be up past 10:00pm at the very least, so could an Anon or a group of Anons please roll a number of d100’s that correspond to the roll in this post.

>>4236733
>Because both choices involve Breaking Tests, it should be alright for players to roll without a consensus of what they are rolling for. First rolls are the ones we are using. You don't have to make all three if you don't want to, though.

>You have three rolls to get one of the following; 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 or 89.

Rolled 74, 38, 2 = 114 (3d100)

one last thing:
check without touching anything:
is it just the clothes? it sounds like the towels havent's Run, have the pliers or bathmat? are the towels overlapping each other? (perhaps mutually?)

then
>Mr. Sandman, Bring Me a Dream

try not to touch any PGF objects as we use the bathroom; maybe it's something about where they are or how they are lying that makes them not move.

>>4236795
>Good job on the roll. I'll start working on the post.

>>4236733
>>Mr. Sandman, Bring Me a Dream
Please, I'm so tired

>>4236795
Thank you for the '2'

>Mr. Sandman, Bring Me a Dream

This was supposed to be a relaxing evening, with nothing due and the luxury of takeout wings. Instead, this evening was a series of existential crises in a bathroom over foodscraps. You can't remember the last time that you felt so completely and utterly defeated. As if on cue, your temples pound.

Well fuck. Is this just being tired and stressed, or is this some sort of trauma? You stand in the doorway of the Wet Lab, still naked, and briefly go through the list of symptoms for internal bleeding or trauma in the Brain. You rock side-to-side, as you are still to tight to comfortably rock back and forth. There doesn't seem to be anything else that could be a symptom. At this point, you'll just chalk it up to being tired and stressed.

You walk into the bathroom, and do one last check. The Funny Bones are still in the sink. They aren't touching each other, which considering what they are capable of doing when in Contact, is almost certainly for the best. The pliers are still sitting where they were on one side of the sinks basin, opposite of where you had left the first Noisy Bone for most of the day. The control group and its bucket remain on the toilet. The towels and the bathmat are all still on the rim of the bathtub, where you left them.The Runaway Bones and your clothes are in the bathtub, where you didn't leave them.

You briefly examine, visually, the condition of the towels and bathmat. They are unmoved from where you left them. The towels are folded and stacked on top of one another, separate from the bathmat.

A puzzle for tomorrow. But now, it is finally time to go to sleep. Shutting the lights off in the Wet Lab, you shut the door behind you. As you shuffle over to your dresser to dress for bed, you realize that you aren't completely certain that you are going to wake up tomorrow morning. You aren't panicking, you just aren't certain. Still, you think you will be alright.

Before you go to bed, you grab your phone and send a text to your mother, just to hedge your bets. You weren't going to tell her anything, so you'd use a gift she sent recently as pretext for the text.

*Hey Mom, just finished that Pumpkin Bread you sent me. Was really great. Love you*

The text sends, you put the phone on the plate you left on the nightstand, and you sink into bed. As you close your eyes, sleep is already overtaking you.

>>4238129
And in the morning, you wake up.

>Stress (Level 1)
>Hunger (Level 1)
>Bodily Effluent, Solid (Level 1)
>Bodily Effluent, Liquid (Level 2)

You sit up in bed, and blink a few times. You were tired enough to fall asleep with your glasses still on you, which is something that you usually can't do. You look to your phone; it reads 7:00am. You get up, and instinctively head towards the bathroom to relieve yourself. It is only when you are standing in front of the door that you remember, the bathroom is no longer the bathroom, it is the Wet Lab. This does raise a question, if you are trying to create a controlled environment in the Wet Lab, how much of that precludes using the fixtures inside? You have already decided that the bathtub is off-limits. You are using the sink and the back of the toilet as surfaces for storage. Does this preclude using them as intended?

>Voting Open:

>Wet Lab today, Wet Lab tomorrow, Wet Lab forever. You are going to have to figure out some other way to deal with your needs, the bathroom is for all intents and purposes, gone.

>Well Shit, you gotta Shit. Maintain the integrity of the Wet Lab, while still using the fixtures as intended, so long as they don't effect anything Strange.

>When Nature Calls, Let it Go to Voicemail. You are hungry. Address that first, and maybe some other ideas or new perspective will come to you.

>Well Shit, you gotta Shit.

pee in a porcelain cup first to confirm visually our pee is not PGF, since we've been exposed to it a lot. if we have one that's already dirty, use that.

is the sink drain metal? might want to cover that up while we're experimenting and avoid having PGF water on the sink.

>>4238156
>Well Shit, you gotta Shit.

As long as we only use the toilet, this should be fine. I'd say let's go wash our hands in the kitchen sink, though. At least so long as nothing weird happens during our morning shit.

>Good thing we have a consensus. Resuming...

There are physiological realities that demand that compromises are made here; the Wet Lab must also be a half-bath, at the very least. That send, all this hinges on if none of your effluent carries the distortion. You do not drink coffee, but on occasion you will make yourself a mug of hot chocolate. There are two mugs in the apartment, one of which you “found” from your freshman dining hall. Considering that you did not pay for it, and that it is smaller than the one from home, you decide to use it as a specimen basin. Leaving the kitchen area, you head into the Wet Lab, stopping to undress before entering.

It seems that one of the two towels have Runaway as well and exhibits the same behaviors as the clothes do. Completely submerged and pressing itself flat against the bottom of the bathtub. At this point, there are only three articles that have been exposed to PGF distorted water that have not Runaway: the other towel, the bathmat, and the lineman pliers. Obviously, there is some mechanism to the Runaway phenomenon, that dictates when the affect articles move. Unfortunately, you still have not managed to divine it. Taking a minute to check that the Funny Bones are still in the basin of the pedestal sink, and the Silent Bones of the Control group are still in the box on the toilet, you satisfy yourself that there are no unexpected or unprecedented phenomena going on in the Wet Lab. There are a long list of experiments that you have thought up yesterday, and many of them are still worth running. Once you take care of personal needs, you intend to resume investigating the Strangeness.

Relieving into a coffee mug is a new experience for you. Obviously, as it was not designed with this use in mind, you must be deliberate, otherwise you may contaminate the Wet Lab. And even if your effluent does not carry distortion, you still are not keen on the idea of getting your own effluent all over yourself. With the solemnity of a geriatric, you slowly relieve yourself into what must be the most unfortunate coffee mug you have every known. Once done, you examine the specimen.

>>4240963
Or rather, you attempt to.

You do not see any distortion, because you cannot see any specimen to physically examine. You felt it passing, you felt the weight of the mug increase as the effluent accumulated, you felt it swish around as you lifted the mug up to inspect the specimen, you feel the heat, much more than you would expect from liquid effluent warming the mug. You can even see the steam rising off it, but you can not see it. There is no room for doubt, there is some manner of Strangeness inside of you, and it seems to be Stranger than the PGF distortion. You can feel your bile rising, and with it, Panic.

>We need one roll of a d6 please for the Panic Test.

Rolled 5 (1d6)

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>4240978
Well, that is a Breaking Test. Roll the number of d100's in this posts roll, to try to get a Fibonacci number. (1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 or 89)

>After the Breaking Test is resolved, I was thinking of ways that we could flesh our our character a bit more. They don't have too much of a personality beyond "frugal", "tinkerer" and "introverted". What I was thinking about was for every day in game, at least until the character is fleshed out, I could come up with a question, and provide several answers for you guys to vote on. The idea is that it wouldn't effect the characters abilities, rather, it would effect the prompts that you would get in the future. An example; if there was a question about acts of violence, and the majority voted for a pacifistic answer, then in the future, there would be less prompts that would lead to fighting. Something like that. Any objections?

Rolled 40, 91 = 131 (2d100)

>>4241108
that's a pretty smart system actually. so if the quest takes off and new people join, personality drift is less likely, but still possible. I'm stealing that.

but maybe you don't need to write as detailed for those questions, since they're not part of the puzzle.
and maybe ask them before the character trait becomes important, so you don't need to wait for answers to continue the quest.

Madness is the name of the feeling or state that occurs when the Mind Breaks, but Reality remains Lucid, that is to say, everything is understandable, predictable, and Mundane. Opposed to Madness, there is another named feeling or state that occurs when Reality Breaks, but the Mind remains Lucid.

Terror.

To be terrified is to be sane amongst the insane. Where the state of Strangeness has so overtaken the World, that it shakes you to your core, and calls to question Reality itself. And as Reality ultimately exists, in the philosophical sense at least, inside the individual, when Reality is called into question, so to is the individual. A batter of existential questions, each cutting deeper then the last, until there is nothing but doubt. Ultimately, that is the true core of terror, self-doubt.

You are sitting on the tiled floor of the Wet Lab. The mug is with you, to your right. You are truly at a loss here. Quite obviously, whatever happened here is something well beyond what can be diagnosed with WebMD. Or any medicine. Or fucking physics for that matter. What has happened here is quite literally, physically impossible. You rest your head against the wall. Feeling the resistance on the back of head as you rest it is an odd comfort, considering how wrong, how Strange everything seems to be. You set the mug down. Considering the relatively contained nature of the other phenomena, the fact that you have developed invisible urine seems to be the most pressing here.

>>4241739
>Some choices are going to need to be made, both as how to investigate this new phenomenon and how to deal with the issues that it raises. Write-in with your experiment ideas, and then we will go from there as usual. There is however a time limit at play here; while you have relieved your bladder, you have not given the same consideration to your bowels. You will need to decide on our course of action before we reach Bodily Effluent, Solid (Level 3) in 10 hours, at 5:00 pm. From Level 1 to Level 2 is 5 hours, from Level 2 to Level 3 is also 5 hours. The course of actions are listed below. You do not need to vote on them now but experimenting with them in mind is a good play here. If there is not a consensus by 5:00pm, then players will be prompted to choose one.

>We Are Going to Need a Bigger Mug: For the foreseeable future, you will attempt to store all your effluent as safely as possible, treating them all like specimens.

>Returning Nature’s Call: The adjoining lot is undeveloped and is wooded. Your side door leads straight to it, you should be able to relieve yourself outside without being noticed by the neighbors or more importantly, your landlord.

>Everyone Poops: There are limits to what you can realistically do to minimize all this Strangeness, and with this development, you have surpassed them. Resume using the toilet as intended.

>Where is Your Restroom?: You are going to need to go to the bathroom eventually, but nothing says that it must be your bathroom. There are public bathrooms all over the place, as long as you don’t make a scene, you should be able to use them and if something happens, it won’t be your head. (Kek).

if it becomes pressing, my vote is on >Where is Your Restroom?

random questions:

what did we drink yesterday?

which of the towels Moved (small or big)? was it on top or bottom?

what were our contaminated clothes like?


actions:

check our spit. snot if we have any. is everything our body produces invisible now?

Deduction: we see steam rising off the invisible effluent, so the steam affects light even if the liquid does not.

Hypothesis: invisible things return to normal if they evaporate. or perhaps the Strangeness will stay behind.

test:
get an ice cube and a saucer.
confirm the effluent is still steaming. if it isn't, fill the bottom of the sink with hot water to about 1/3 of the mug's height and place the mug in that to heat it.
put the saucer upside down on top of the mug.
put the ice cube on the saucer.
wait a few minutes, flip the saucer over and see if the condensate is visible.

>>4241108
I really like this idea

>>4241741

First off, how to deal with the urine problem. Although I'm tempted by 'we're going to need a bigger mug', we still don't know if Strangeness can be transmitted through plastics.

Instead, I suggest that we piss in the bathtub from now on. The bathtub is full of strangeness already. Lets just add the piss strangeness.

>Everyone Poops:

Maybe only water is affected? At the very least, its not like the poop is going to go anywhere.

>Alright, we will start running experiments. Expect the posting around 8pm Eastern Standard Time

going to bed.
>>4242347
we need to bathe in the tub to make Noisy Bones.
doing that might break it.
also gross.

>>4241813
random question: what's the tiles on the Wet Lab floor made of?

hypothesis: PGF is a "diluted" version of invisibility? they're kinda similar effects and both of them make affected items warm.

test: mix some invisible effluent with normal water and see what happens. use a smallish glass or plastic vessel, like a shot glass or disposable plastic cup (sounds like we don't have a lot of ceramic, and we'll need to find out if it can spread to those anyways). rest it on the side of the tub in case it PGFs the container.

It takes several minutes for you pull yourself together. Clearly, the Strangeness is affecting you, in ways that are not immediately apparent. Going forward, you are going to need to pay much closer attention to yourself, when interacting with the Strangeness. Finally, as you come to your senses, you start asking questions, and attempting to make connections between the seemingly similar phenomena of the PGF distortion (now with glow) in the water and the invisible liquid effluent. While there are some hard questions about going to the bathroom in your future, of immediate concern is determining what exactly happened here.

Your first thought was to consider what you ate, and perhaps more importantly, drank, yesterday. Well, outside of the Chicken Wings, it was a fairly typical day as far as meals were concerned. Both in the sense that you rarely will treat yourself to takeout like that, and in regard to the Strangeness of the Bones. For breakfast, you had two Potatoes, light on the butter, heavy on the pepper. For lunch you had Canned Tuna Fish, served on a bed of Egg Noodles. You ate the entirety of the Chicken Wings for dinner, and then when you got hungry again, you had Pork and Potatoes. The few times you drunk anything yesterday it was water from a filtered pitcher you keep in the refrigerator. There is not anything else to drink in the place, anyway. With a pandemic going on, you have been putting off going to the grocery store.

If the assumption that the invisible liquid effluent was caused by eating something, then the obvious suspect would be the Chicken Wings, as the Bones from the Chicken Wings had (with the exception of the control group) all demonstrated some Strangeness, like the Noise and then the Shakes of the Funny Bones, or the distortion and Runaway behavior demonstrated by the experimental group. But as you have eaten all of the Chicken Wings, then there is no way to recreate and isolate the invisibility phenomenon to just the Chicken Wings … Or is there? There is the Pork Loin Chop in the refrigerator, defrosted and ready to cook. It would be kind of a heavy breakfast, but there is nothing from stopping you from cooking and eating it right now. There is also the restaurant that you ordered the Chicken Wings from, if you wanted to isolate as many variables as possible. But before you attempt to recreate the conditions that led to the effect, there is one issue at play here.

>>4244185
At this point, you do not know if the effects are permanent or temporary. That is to say, if you were to go eat some Meat with a Bone in it right now, you would have no way of knowing if that meal, or a previous meal was responsible for the invisibility. Honestly, you would not even be able to say for sure that it was something you ate that was ultimately responsible for the invisibility. For any gastronomical testing to isolate or reproduce any results, you need to be sure that the effects are not permanent.

You see three possibilities about your body’s, presumably your Bladder’s, ability to produce some level of invisibility. 1: It is permanent. 2: It is duration-limited, that is to say after enough time passes, the effect will weaken or fade. 3: It is usage-limited, that is to say after enough evacuations, the effect will weaken or fade.
If you were to drink a great deal of water, right now, to the point that you evacuated several times in a hour or so, and the effect did fade, you could consider that tentative evidence that this was a usage-limited phenomena. If after evacuating several times in an hour, and the effect did not fade, but at some later point it did begin to fade, when you returned to a more typical level of water consumption, then you could consider that tentative evidence that this was a duration-limited phenomena. If the effect never faded (or intensified, though how would something become more invisible?) then you could consider that definitive evidence that this was a permanent phenomenon.

The issue with running these tests, is that they will all produce liquid effluent. If you intend to keep all of the Strangeness stored in Porcelain vessels, then this test will probably eat into your supply drastically. Especially if you were to keep samples from different evacuations separate, to identify any differences for the sake of the test.

>Wet Work: You are going to have to get to the bottom of this sooner or later, why not sooner? Attempt to determine if the invisible effluent is a permanent effect, or if it is limited in someway with the Evacuation test. Will use 3 out of 8 remaining Porcelain Vessels.

>Dry Spell: You are going to have to get to the bottom of this sooner or later, why not later? While determining if the phenomenon is limited would help us isolate it further, the fact remains that you have other ideas, ones that are so Porcelain hungry.

>Look for the personality prompt tomorrow!

>>4244192
>>Dry Spell

I am still less concerned about the pee than some other stuff that's been going on.

I also still think we should just piss in the tub.

>>4244292
Okay. Going forward for tonight's session, we will continue on to the other considerations and actions outlined before that in >>4241813.

But before we do, I did promise a personality prompt! Resuming...

>>4245842
-Several Weeks Ago-

You were in the city, responding to a listing on Craigslist for rollers that you could use to rebuild your inheritance, your Grandfather’s Belsaw Sawmill, which currently sits in the second bay in the garage. The seller worked at the diner and was to meet you during their break. They were running late, and so you grabbed one of the free local newspapers and went outside to wait. Most of the news was unremarkable, but one article stuck out to you; a law increasing the penalties for Poaching to the level of a Felony had just passed the Legislature, and was heading to the Governor. How exactly did you feel about this, again?

>You are not opposed to hunting when it is sustainable and done ethically. To ensure that hunting is sustainable and ethical, some level of governmental oversight is needed. Poaching, done completely outside of that oversight, is also often done at levels that are not sustainable, or in an unethical fashion. Additionally, the bill increases the maximum penalty for Poaching, not the minimum, so it is not like everyone caught Poaching will become a Felon, right?

>Personally, you find the idea of hunting itself more than a little unsettling. The idea of hunting for sport, of finding some sort of enjoyment in the act of killing is what gets you. You know that a lot of people hunt for “meat”, but the glibness that they have about going out and killing makes them little better than those that hunt for sport, at least to your sensibilities. It seems to you that a Poacher is not only capable of killing for some level of enjoyment, but also of breaking laws. To you, this is a completely justified law.

> You understand that Poaching does present issues when it comes to maintaining healthy and sustainable animal populations, and that Poaching animals that are under some level of threat should carry increased penalties, which, to your knowledge, it does. But animals that are not endangered probably should not be a Felony to take out of season. Additionally, you do not believe that there is going to be much discretion used in the application of this law. True, you believe that Game Wardens are generally much more sensible than Police Officers, but honestly, you cannot support this law.

>It is a good thing that Grandfather is not alive to have to deal with this bullshit like this, considering how often he’d take game out of season. He always said that the meat tastes the same the day before the season opens as it does the first day of the season, so why bother waiting? Poachers already face some harsh penalties. And while some consideration for endangered animals is appropriate, the idea of “poaching” a nuisance animal, especially ones that have a dangerously large population is such asinine cosmopolitan bullshit. If you had the time, the land and a gun to do it with, you would break this law.

>>4246001
>> You understand that Poaching does present issues when it comes to maintaining healthy and sustainable animal populations, and that Poaching animals that are under some level of threat should carry increased penalties, which, to your knowledge, it does. But animals that are not endangered probably should not be a Felony to take out of season. Additionally, you do not believe that there is going to be much discretion used in the application of this law. True, you believe that Game Wardens are generally much more sensible than Police Officers, but honestly, you cannot support this law.

Really interesting personality prompt OP.
I don't support hunting myself, but Live Free or Die

>> You understand that Poaching does present issues when it comes to maintaining healthy and sustainable animal populations, and that Poaching animals that are under some level of threat should carry increased penalties, which, to your knowledge, it does. But animals that are not endangered probably should not be a Felony to take out of season. Additionally, you do not believe that there is going to be much discretion used in the application of this law. True, you believe that Game Wardens are generally much more sensible than Police Officers, but honestly, you cannot support this law.

somewhat anti-establishment without getting worked up about it.

personally:

hunting isn't a worse way to get your meat than factory farming. restriction should be mainly about reducing ecological impact.
cursory searching: New England doesn't seem to use a lot of private prisons. if there's a concrete poaching problem to point to that the current penalties aren't addressing (e.g. rich people poaching to the point of ecological damage and just paying the fines), I could be for this.

>>4246843
>>4246462

Alright, this is good input. I will have the post up later tonight, possibly after midnight.

>Dry Spell

After a few moments of thought, you decide to hold off attempting any new tests, at least for the moment. There is no need to commit to a drastic experiment like the one you have thought up, at the very least, it makes sense to hold off on it until you have Deduced all of the information that you can from the phenomena in the Wet Lab. While there is nothing tangible connecting the two of them, the invisibility demonstrated by your liquid effluent, and the PGF distortion of the water and the articles that had been exposed to the water seem similar. Whatever has happened, the Strangeness has affected the visual appearance in both effluent and water. Perhaps there is some significance here.

Your hope here, is that by unraveling one of these mysteries, other will unravel themselves. To that end, the latest Runaway, the Steel Gray Washcloth. Yesterday, you used this to finish drying yourself off. When you were done with it, you folded it, and placed it on top of the Bath Towel you were using earlier. The Washcloth is now on top of your clothes, just as the clothes are on top of the Bones, right in the middle of the bottom of the bathtub. Both the clothes and the Washcloth are lying flat against the bottom of the bathtub, or as flat as they can over the Bones.

Nothing unprecedented there. After several minutes staring at the articles that have not Runaway, you decide to try to find commonalities between the Runaways, in the hopes that you are able to Deduce more about the phenomena. The towels, both the Runaway Washcloth and the Bath Towel are made from Cotton. As for your clothes? Well, you were wearing an undershirt, underwear and jeans around the house, so as far as materials are concerned, that is Cotton for the undershirt, Cotton again for the underwear, and Denim for the Jeans. And isn’t Denim just some sort of processed Cotton, or something like that? Well, if it was not for the Silent Bones in the experimental group acting as a counterexample, then there would be something right there.

>>4250365
Maybe thinking in terms of specific materials is too narrow. You shift your weight back and forth and try to think of something that Cotton and Bone have in common with each other. The only thing that comes to you immediately is that they both are naturally occurring materials, but even that is a shaky connection. While the Bones are all made from whatever material Bones are made from, which would be naturally occurring, as well as any trace amounts of Meat, the clothes are a bit more complicated. The undershirt is, to the best of your knowledge, made from one hundred percent Cotton. But the underwear has an elastic band, which is presumably synthetic, and the Cotton in the jeans is dyed, again with presumably some synthetic components. So, the mechanism for deciding what can Runaway does not seem to be a complete absence of any synthetic materials.

Maybe looking at what did not Runaway will give insight into what will, but even making the distinction of what did not Runaway is not straightforward. There are numerous objects that have been exposed to PGF distortion and did not become distorted themselves. Are they to be considered to have not Runaway, or should the only consideration be for articles that have been distorted? Several more minutes go by, and you are not making any headway.

>>4250368
You get the distinct feeling that you are missing something. That several important pieces of information have been overlooked. Well, hopefully they will come to you.

You have noticed that the liquid effluent in the mug is no longer steaming, as it was earlier. When you first saw, or rather, didn't see this, you were not in a state to consider how Strange it was to see something invisible produce visible steam. Currently, however, you are in such a state. And you have an inkling of an idea of how to conduct an investigation into the visible steam from invisible liquid effluent.

>Stress (Level 1)
>Hunger (Level 1)
>Bodily Effluent, Solid (Level 1)
>Time Until Bodily Effluent, Solid (Level 2) is less than 5 hours

guess to work on after we don't have a time limit: it's about mass. probably not though. the jeans are probably the heaviest thing that moved, do we think they are heavier than the bathmat or pliers? they probably are.

guess to work on after we don't have a time limit: it's about whether they're fully contaminated. I guess look at the towels in detail.

might also be a combination of the two, something like volume contaminated divided by mass.

Okay, so I will be continuing with the experiment outlined. Look for the post up at around 8:30pm Eastern Time

Before you run the experiment on your liquid effluent to determine the parameters of the invisibility, you decide that it would be prudent to see if all your bodily discharges are now invisible. Spit seems the easiest to produce and the least disgusting to deal with, so it makes sense to look at this first. Deciding that using one of the eight remaining porcelain vessels for such a small specimen does not seem prudent, you elect to expectorate into the basin of the sink instead. You will need to decide on whether to use one of your remaining towels to clean it up or not though.

But before you make that decision, and before you run the experiment in the sink at all, you make a point of ensuring that everything is where and how you left it. The Funny Bones are in the basin of the sink, where they must have fallen after you dropped them, and the pliers are where you left them. Though there is something off about their Strangeness. Holding off on the quick expectoration experiment, you really examine the pliers, as close as you examined your phone when you were looking it all over for any PGF distortion. While it is harder to see the PGF distortion or darker objects, the well-defined, sharp edges of the metal head make it easy to see where there is some distortion.

>>4251616
Emphasis on some distortion.

>>4251624
The grips of the pliers are not distorted! When you saw the distortion on the head of the pliers, you assumed that the entire article was distorted, but now, you see that this was not the case. The Dark Blue, soft grips would be much harder to see PGF distortion on than the rest of the pliers. So, the grips of the pliers do not demonstrate PGF distortion. You rack your Brain and try to think if the grips of the pliers ever made Contact with the water. After a minute of thought, you cannot remember any specific point where they were, but that leads to another point; the entirety of the clothes and the towels demonstrated the PGF distortion, not only the portions that were in contact with the PGF distorted water.

So, it seems that whatever is happening here with the Lineman Pliers is similar to what is happening with the Enamel lining of the tub, and the Porcelain pedestal sink. For the first time since all this Strangeness began yesterday, you smile. This is big! It must be big. Common behaviors across seemingly different articles should make determining what they have in common easier. Once you have a commonality established, making a Deduction is for all intents and purposes an afterthought. This is what making headway must feel like. Regardless, you have confirmed that nothing else has changed on the sink, and that you should be able to move ahead with the expectoration experiment without further complication from an outside phenomenon. All that is left is to prepare the basin for this quick experiment.

>(These votes are mutually exclusive)

>Boneless Sink. While you are hesitant to touch those damned Funny Bones again, you probably should not be spitting around them. As long as you do not touch them at the same time, you should be safe, right?

>Bone-In Sink. While you are hesitant to be spiting around those damned Funny Bones again, you probably should not just be touching them. As long as the spit does not get on them, you should be safe, right?

>Vegan Alternative Sink. While you are hesitant to be using any of your remaining supply of Lesser Porcelain Vessels (eight left unused, one (Dinner Plate) being used for the phone on your nightstand, and one (Pilfered Mug) being used for the liquid effluent sample.

>>4251661
>>Bone-In Sink.

I would like to recommend a change in experiment, though. So that we can do two related experiments at once.

So, once spit and aim to not him the bones.
Then, next time, spit with the aim of having spit come into contact with one of the Funny Bones to see what happens.

>>4251953
>I'll keep this vote open until 6pm Eastern Standard Time, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm fine with your proposed modification to the expectoration experiment.

>The next post should be up around 8pm Eastern Standard Time.

>>4253126
Okay, I'll start writing now.

File: Wet Lab Sink.jpg (62 KB, 1000x1000)

62 KB JPG

It is with no small amount of trepidation that you ultimately decide that after determining if the same phenomena present in your liquid effluent is present in your expectorate, you will see if the Funny Bones react upon making Contact with the expectorate. Again, you are counting that so long as both of the Bones are dealt with one at a time, you will be dealing with Noisy Bones instead of Funny Bones. That being said, it is still an assumption. Since the Bones demonstrated their terrible Shaking, you have not made any Contact with them at all.

You decide to not tempt fate, or the Strangeness for that matter, by running the experiment in the basin, near the Funny Bones without knowing anything about the condition of your expectorate. There is still ample room to run a test on the rim of the sink, so you will start there. Lowering yourself to just above the rim, you jut out your jaw, and in what is almost as an unforgettably uncomfortable experiment as the release of liquid effluent into the Pilfered Mug, you proceed with the experiment. From your angle, you should be able to see the spit as it passes from your lips, falls through the air and then lands on the sink. Several awkward seconds pass as you feel the expectorate slowly run over your lower lip. Then the fall! You feel the expectorate fall from you lips; if it is visible, from this angle, you should see it in less than a second … nothing. As an added level of confirmation, you the sound of the splatter as it hits the sink. Your expectorate, as well as your liquid effluent has been confirmed to be invisible. Specifically, what has caused this, and what this actually means, you do not know.

File: Dark Blue Washcloths.jpg (58 KB, 491x480)

58 KB JPG

>>4253616
As you look at, or rather, as you don’t look at your expectorate, there is the question raised about dealing with contamination. If this expectorate (and your liquid effluent) spreads invisibility like the Strange Bathwater spreads PGF distortion, then you are going to have a serious problem. At least with the Strange Bathwater, you can see it. But an invisible contaminant, that could be a serious issue...

>You have a general idea where exactly you spat, so you will make a point of not putting things in the Near Left Corner of the rim of the sink. Maybe put something there, to help remind you.

>You only have a general idea where exactly you spat, so it would make sense to clean it up. Hmm … A job for the washcloth? (A Dark Blue Washcloth has made Contact with invisible expectorate)

>>4253693
>clean it up.
but:
use some tissue or toilet paper. it's a really small amount of liquid, no sense using a whole washcloth.

also, it's easier to see when bright things have absorbed water than dark things. I wonder if the wet patch will be visible.

File: Needful Things.jpg (58 KB, 500x500)

58 KB JPG

>>4253731
You decide to make like a Janny, and after some thought, you also decide to use some toilet paper instead of some of your precious remaining linens. Though with the scarcity brought on by the pandemic, toilet paper is scarce as well. Before all this Strangeness happened, earlier Yesterday, you replaced the roll of toilet paper. Counting this new one that you are using in this experiment, you have three left. You pull a few sheets from the roll, fold them up, and make what you are going to call a Testing Wad. At this point, there is nothing left but to clean up.

As wipe makes Contact with the expectorate, the spots and dots return. If you understand everything correctly, then this means that you are making Contact with something Strange, with in turns means that you can make Contact with Strangeness through the paper. After wiping back and forth for a minute, you feel the consistency of the paper change in your hand. There is no invisibility, and there is no additional heat either. You make a full visual inspection, you can see the damp spot where the expectorate was absorbed, but you cannot see any "missing" pieces, or any distortion. At least, until the Blink. Had you not been looking at; you might have missed it. For about 3 seconds, the entire wad of paper was invisible. As it Blinked in your hand, you noticed that its temperature noticeably rose, though not that significantly. Noticeably above room temperature, but not to a dangerous, or even uncomfortable level. Besides that, when the wad was Blinked, it felt the same as any slightly dampened wad of toilet paper. When the Blink ended, the heat faded away. Flipping the wad, so the wet side is facing up, you put it back down on the rim of the sink.

You are still experiencing the spots and dots, but besides that, you are no worse for the wear. However, the next part of this quick experiment has a much higher potential for danger.

>You have made the following deduction: Strangeness can make Contact indirectly through paper tissue.

>>4253832
Moving along, you have resolved to spit on one of the Funny Bones, and see what, if anything happens. But as you lean over the sink, looking at the Bones, you can feel yourself losing your nerve. After the Funny Bones both physically and metaphorically shook you to your core, you have not made any Contact with any of the Bones. Obviously, at some point, you are going to have to touch them again, and the time may come where you have to experience the Shaking of the Funny Bones again, but that does not mean that you are looking forward to it, by any stretch of the imagination. The issue at hand is the fact that your expectorate is invisible. While it is unlikely, you could hit both Bones during expectoration, assuming they were both in the basin of the sink. Everything you understand about Contact means that the Bones would not be considered as in Contact with one another, but there is one point against that.

You have established rules of Contact by direct touch and the Strange Bathwater, (formerly PGF distorted water), and all you have is a series of assumptions that invisibility and PGF distortion are similar phenomena, and will therefore have similar rules for Contact. But you do not know this for certain. You have a choice (Votes are mutually exclusive).

>Spit Carefully. Expectorate deliberately on only one of the Bones.

>Spit Comfortably. Attempt to remove one of the Bones from the basin of the sink by hand and then expectorate on the remaining Bone.

>Forecast and the Weather. Blow on the Bones to move them into position close to each other without touching, and then attempt to expectorate enough between them to make Contact.

>Just the Forecast. Blow on the Bones until they make Contact before you do any expectoration.

>Justice for Blinky! Hold off on the Funny Bones, you still have ideas for experiments with the Blinking Wad. (This is a Write-In).

>I'm going to leave this up for a bit, so I can go grab dinner. I should be able to get at least another experiment done tonight.

>>4253843
>Comfortably.

we have to touch them sooner or later, but probably shouldn't try to make them shake in the sink. could damage the bones or the sink.

last post by me today.
test for later. before the evaporation test.

hypothesis: blinking something makes the invisible liquid stop being invisible.

test: dip a corner of a piece of toilet paper in the effluent (very little).
is the damp patch yellow before blinking?
does this wad blink within a similar timeframe as the previous one?
is the patch yellow after blinking?

>>4253843
>>Spit Comfortably.

>>4253897
This is a great idea, but let's hold off on it for a few hours just because -- unless we are seriously dehydrated -- our effluent shouldn't be yellow right off the bat.

>>4253873
>>4254205
Well, I managed to lose track of time. I'm heading to bed now, but I'll finish what I have and post it. Look for this experiments post around 5pm Eastern Standard Time. There will be a vote, and then I should have the "run" such as it is up for 8:30pm Eastern Standard Time.

>>4254209
I can't find where we got rid of any yesterday, so It's probably everything we produced from the start of the quest until this morning. (so maybe 12 hours)
actually
>>4254250
do we seem to be producing waste the rate we'd expect?

>>4254341
>do we seem to be producing waste the rate we'd expect?

>Yes.

Resolving yourself, you reach out and grab one of the Bones in the sink. As you make Contact, there is an unfamiliar Noise accompanying it. It is faint, and therefore not particularly easy to describe, but it sounds like a small appliance started up on the other side of your apartment. A Noise both distant and constant. With the Noisy Bone in your hand, you find yourself wondering as to the significance of this new Noise. Previously, the Noisy Bones only made Noise when the Bones were in Contact with you and Strangeness. The obvious question is that if this Noisy Bone is making Noise now, where and what is the Strangeness that it is in simultaneous Contact with?

There is an obvious answer to this question, but attempting to sidestep it, you look around at your surroundings. The Blinking Wad sits in the Near Left Corner of the sink, next to the area you ran your expectoration experiment. You try moving the Noisy Bone closer to the Blinking Wad, but there is no change in the Noise. The you try moving the Noisy Bone closer to the distorted pliers, but there is still no change in that distant, constant sound. You are not standing on anything, except the (ceramic?) tiles that make up the floor, so you are forced to come to terms with the obvious answer.

You are now Strange, or at least, Stranger then you were yesterday. If the Noisy Bones make Noise when in Contact with both you and Strangeness simultaneously, then it stands to reason, if there is no apparent Strangeness that you are in direct physical Contact with, then the Strangeness must be internal. Does this have something to do with experiencing the Shaking from being in Contact with both of the Funny Bones? Well, now you have a new issue to deal with: if you yourself are now capable of producing Strangeness, specifically invisible emissions (not limited to effluent, as evidenced by the expectoration experiments), and these emissions can Contaminate things, then how are you going to deal with it?

>>4255099
You can feel yourself beginning to panic a bit, but you make a concerted effort to calm yourself down. It is at this point that you notice the Blinking Wad Blink a second time, for the same duration as before, about three seconds. Quite honestly, you were not expecting a repeat performance like this. Suddenly, new questions are raised about Blinking. Is the effect permanent, or is there some mechanism that determine how long it lasts for? As you attempt to focus on these more productive questions, the mental image of you waiting in line at a Grocery Store checkout and having your clothes Blink comes to you.

This new droning Noise is not helping your nerves, so you return the Noisy Bone to the pedestal sink, placing it in the Rear Left Corner. For now, you will refer to this Noisy Bone as the Left Noisy Bone, to keep track of the two of them. Unfortunately for you, this mental housekeeping busywork does not help your composure here. Honestly, you need to master your anxieties here. Even if Blinking was permanent, or even long-lasting, or somehow hard to dispel, you only know it is spread by emissions, like liquid effluent, expectorate and …

Perspiration?

Oh fuck. If you can actually sweat invisibility, then that is … going to be an issue. How are you going to deal with that? And if Blinking is actually permanent or capable of spreading, or both, then how will you ever know what you have Contaminated? It is at this particular moment that you realize that you slept in a tank top last night, and if your perspiration is capable of spreading invisibility, then that means that your bedding could already be Blinking. Rushing out of the Wet Lab into the bedroom, you go straight to the bed, and stare at it, like a hawk. Nothing happens.

Until the Blink, where for half a second, maybe less, the sheets disappear. You feel like the room is spinning, but you are not sure if it is just you or it is the Strangeness. But what is even the difference anymore?

>Well, this is going to be a Panic Test. Could one Anon please roll one d6. Rolls of 1 and 2 means passing. Rolls of 3 and 4 mean Panic. Rolls of 5 and 6 mean a Breaking Test. In this case Panic would mean that the character would miss out on an observation, or a Deduction.

>On the other side of this Panic Test, we will resume with the plan condensation experiment, after breakfast, unless there is a consensus on a write in. Look for the post around 8:30pm Eastern Standard Time.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

interesting that it blinked a shorter time. more volume/mass of thing to blink relative to liquid, maybe. maybe we can turn something permanently invisible if we have enough of it. maybe that's what's with the liquids; the invisibility thing is actually something in them.

you said the sheets blinked. which of them? like did we have a blanket and a mattress cover that both blinked in synch? if multiple things blinked in sync, get the wad and see if that's in sync with them too. hold the wad, don't put it down.

>>4255190
Alright, I am working on the post now, though it will probably be a bit before it is up.

>>4255190
The focus here is on trying to measure and contain the blinking. Containment of all our liquids is going to be really difficult/ impossible, so let's focus on understanding the phenomenon.

Experiment 1:
>grab phone and bring into bathroom
>put phone on stopwatch setting
>wait for blink of toilet paper wad
>time it and stop at next blink
>repeat 2 or 3 times to see if it blinks at regular intervals

The possible confounding variable is the presence of the bones. Things did blink shortly after we touched the Noisy Bone. Try the experiment without touching the bones again. If it is taking like 15 minutes or something with no blinking, then abandon it.

Alright, so last nights second post kind of morphed into today's first post. I'll incorporate both >>4255190 and >>4256212 into a single experiment.

And as to the question of specifically what Blinked, it was the sheets and the mattress cover, and yes, they were both Blinked at the same time, for the same duration.

>Incidentally, you were really on the ball here. The observation that would have been missed with a failed Panic Test here was that the sheets and pad of the bedding blinked at the same time. So even if you had failed, you would have bounced right back.

You decide to sideline your condensation experiment for the moment and focus on this new phenomenon. The first thing that jumps out at you is the fact that two separate articles Blinked at the exact same time. While you do not know for sure at this point, you have an educated guess that the Blinking Sheets is caused by the bedding coming into Contact with your perspiration. At this point, the line of inquiry that you are looking at is more focused towards the behavior of the phenomena, and not its genesis. Moreover, if there is some element of synchronization, then that means that using the stopwatch or timer feature on your phone could aid in understanding this phenomenon.

The second observation you have made about the Blinking is that there seems to be a different duration of Blinking between the Blinking Wad and the Blinking Sheets. It is possible that there is some mechanism that determines the lengths of the Blink. Specifically, the way that the larger object, the sheets and mattress pad Blinked for about one-sixth of the duration that the smaller object, the Testing Wad did. There may be some correlation between the mass or volume of the article that is Blinking relative to the amount of the Strange Bodily Emission.

Finally, these two observations have posed a question; does the Blinking Wad and the Blinking Sheets Blink at the same time? Resolving to answer this question, and then grab something to eat for breakfast, you head into the Wet Lab, and carefully retrieve the Blinking Wad, intending to take it out into the bedroom, to see if there is any synchronization between these phenomena. Before you can even make it out of the Wet Lab, however, the Blinking Wad Blinks again.

>>4256784
You are more than a little startled, but you have the presence of mind to look to see if the Blinking Sheets also Blinked. Unfortunately, you have gotten in the habit of closing the door to the Wet Lab as you come and go, and you did not have the presence of mind to leave it open this one time, on the off chance something like this, or exactly this happened. By the time you have gotten the door open again, the Blinking Sheets is not Blinked. You do not know for certain if it ever was, though.

You retrieve your phone from the plate on the nightstand by the bed and resolve to watch at least 15 minutes for either of the two Blinking articles to Blink again. With your phone in your off hand, you hit the stopwatch, having positioned yourself to both Wad and bedding Blink.

It does not even take a full minute.

The Blink! The synchronized Blink! Both the sheets and the Wad become invisible at the exact same moment, as near as you can tell. Unfortunately, because you are looking at both the Blinking Wad and the Blinking Sheets, getting a feeling for the timing is not easy. But it seems that this a fairly forgiving phenomenon. Both the Blinking Sheets and the Blinking Wad Blink every minute, and after messing around with your stopwatch function, you find that your original estimates are pretty much dead on. The Blinking Wad Blinks for a little more than three seconds. The Blinking Sheets Blinks for a little less than half a second. But perhaps most importantly, between the start of the Blinks, there is exactly one minute. Or at the very least, to the limits of the phones timekeeping, an exact minute.

>>4256787
To conclude this experiment, you use the phone to film the phenomena, holding the Blinking Wad in front of the Blinking Sheets, and watch, as the camera of your phone dutifully captures the synchronized Blink. After capturing it, the replay shows everything as you saw it. The recording lasts a little more than two minutes, and as such, captures two cycles of Blinking. As the recording concludes, and you are about to tap out of the video capture application, your eyes pass over the SHARE icon on the screen. A thought comes to you quickly. If someone else was to see this recording, what exactly would they see? Would they, could they, see the Blink? The beauty of sending a video is that if anyone sees anything Strange, then they will assume that it is the video that has been altered, and not, you know, reality.

If you sent this to them, you could pretend that you were playing around with some editing software and made this clip. You could even ask pointed questions about how the “effect” looked, was it smooth, was there anything that stood out, things along that vein. You could get some sort of outside confirmation about all of this Strangeness. What a relief that would be. Resolving to think on this further over breakfast, you head out into the kitchen area, before realizing that you are still naked. Awkwardly returning to get dressed, you make a point of grabbing the plate for the phone, before entering the kitchen area properly this time. Mmm. Potato time. Maybe you should hold off on the water, though…

>Vote for one of these three choices, all mutually exclusive.

>Water you waiting for, a drought? Drink water anyway, you might want to run some experiments with liquid effluent soon.

>Fully Loaded Potato, hold the load, hold the Potato. Maybe you should just hold off on eating anything today, at least until you get a better grasp on the whole Strange Bodily Emission issue.

>Put an “E” on there. Eat the basic, Quayle endorsed breakfast that you were intending to.

>And vote for one of these four choices, all mutually exclusive.

>Mother Knows Best. Send mother the clip, she would probably be quicker to respond than Big Nick. Plus she knows that you have a passing interest in film, so it would not seem like it was completely out of left field to her.

>Big Opinions. Send Big Nick the clip, he’d probably have less questions about the whole thing. Also, mother might think that something was wrong, with a text last night, and a text the next morning.

>Critics Screening. Send the clip to both, with the issues and benefits of both.

>Off Cinema. Do not send the clip, there are better uses of your time.

>>4256844
>Our characters status may inform your decision on the above votes, so here it is for reference.

>Stress (Level 2)
>Hunger (Level 1)
>Bodily Effluent, Solid (Level 1)
>Time Until Bodily Effluent, Solid (Level 2) is less than 4 hours

>As a bookkeeping aside, I am probably going to be archiving the thread tonight, as with Friday comes a glut of new Quests, especially as it gets into the later evening in America. Should have a new thread up for Saturday. If anyone, including any lurkers had any input or suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated!

>>4256787
no way to test, but guesses as to why:
the minute was invented to have the same duration as this interval, or an interval with the same duration.
something is happening every minute, and the blink is a reaction to that.
the effects are ours, and therefore conform to our understanding of time.

again I don't know how we'd test what's true, but it's something to keep in mind.

>>4256844
did you make a mistake with the stress 1 in
>>4250378
?

half a vote for
>Water you waiting for, a drought?
because dehydration sucks.
that's not a good reason, so take someone else's choice if there are any.

whole vote for
>Off Cinema.
if it's different for them than us, that'd be really really weird and mean the movie itself is Strange. so either we learn nothing, or we spread something Strange.

>>4256978
As to the question about the Stress Malus, yes, there was a clerical error. There were two failed Breaking Tests. I must have copied and pasted an older status report and not properly updated it. Apologies.

As for the vote, I'll keep it open for now. The board is moving slower than I thought, so I might plan on archiving the thread after tomorrow's run instead. I'll check back in an hour, if there is another vote, I'll get a post up.

>>4256844
>>Put an “E” on there.
>>Big Opinions

Since the other anon and I disagree, I'd say that if you have to choose, I'm fine compromising on whether or not we eat breakfast.

>>4256978
Maybe you'd be willing to sent the video to Nick and in return I agree to stick to only water this morning?

>>4256844
>Water you waiting for, a drought?
>Big Opinions.

>>4257514
I interpreted the options as

eat and drink (I chose)

don't eat or drink

just eat (you chose, thinking it's eat and drink?)

so I think we want the same here.

it looks like I'm being outvoted on the video.

>>4256844
you could have been clearer with these. I have no idea what an "E" or Quayle are.

>>4257795
Yeah, rereading it, I did a pretty lousy job of explaining what exactly was being voted on. The intent of "Water you waiting for" was to be that you would decide to drink water with the breakfast potato. So the three choices were as you indicated in your last post.

As for the joke in "Put an "E" on it, I admit, it is probably pretty obscure, even for an American audience. About 30 years ago, then Vice-President of the United States Dan Quayle, while making a televised visit to a school, told a student who had correctly spelt "potato" on the classroom chalkboard that he needed "to put an "e" on the end of there" (or something to that effect) for it to be spelled correctly. Basically, if you ask anyone about Quayle now, that is really all they remember about him.

To simplify this particular vote, I'll count your half vote as well. Going forward, I'll make a point of being more explicit about what is being voted on. As we are three slots away from the bottom of the tenth page, I'll archive this thread after this post. Look for the new thread up tonight! Thanks to the possibly 11 posters who stuck through more than 23,000 words over 180 posts.

>>4258082
new thread