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Hey! Whoa! Wow, you're really... geez, this whole Richard thing really knocked you for a loop, didn't it? Is this supposed to be positive thinking? You slacker. Ahem. As an intelligent and perspicacious young lady, you will no doubt be a natural at adapting to your newfound... relationship, and nobody will notice anything weird, and the snake thing will be forgotten, and it'll be exactly like you've had a father for 23 years. A good father. Yes! Yay! You can see it now, and if you clench your fists hard enough you can see it even better. If that makes Richard look over in concern, even better, because that presents an opportunity for some normal interaction, and you—

Gil explodes. Well, not really, but that was your first impression: an electrical spray in your peripheral vision, accompanied with a gooey crunch. "GIL!" you say on instinct, and whirl to meet Gil's non-exploded human eyes. "Oh."

He's sprawled awkwardly on the ground. "Sorry..."

"You're not dead!"

"Uh... no, I-I'm, um... sorry..." Just as awkwardly, he hefts himself to a seated position. "I-I-I didn't mean to interrupt your... er... I-I didn't think it'd make noise, and then it... made..."

"What made noise? Oh! You were— you were—" You gesticulate. "You were beetles! And now you're— wow! You magycked—"

Richard rubs your shoulder. "Primrose, you don't have to speak just to fill the air. Good work, Gil! I would expect that to become less effortful with repetition. Perhaps quieter, too."

"Ah," Gil says. He looks a tad green. "Well, I-I-I guess I'll... find out... you can go back to your thing? Like I said, I-I didn't mean to..."

The longer you spend in Richard's— your father's— Nice Richard's presence, the more wrung-out you feel. Better to keep him to small doses, like a shot of cough syrup. Or grain liquor. "Not at all! We were just wrapping up, weren't we? Yes! I postulate that we have completed our— our sacred duties, at present, and thus we shall henceforth commence, um, our egress, and deliverance upon the world of, um—"

"What?" Gil furrows his brow. "We're getting out of here?"

"N— um— yes."

"Good," he says, and stands, shedding light.

-

Either you bolt to awareness at the same time as Madrigal on the bed, or she does so slightly before you, but that's the first thing you see: her face, curved and flushed, against the dark rock of the bedroom wall. "Wh..." she says.

Gil, beside you, is still slumped over. In the absence of life, his skin has taken on a tacky sheen. You avoid touching him. "Hello!"

"...Fuck. What... Charlotte?"

"Yes! 'Tis I!" You pause. "I mean, yes! Hello. Are you feeling okay? You're awfully pink... what happened with Ellery?"

"With Ellery?" She touches her cheek. "Noth— nothing. None of your business. We talked. What happened with you? What the fuck did you do to that guy?"

(2/4)

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That guy? Oh. You fling your arm out to shield Gil. "Nothing! He's fine, he's just late waking up. We were just talking—"

"Talking."

"Yes? We had matters to discuss..." You detest the growing smirk on Madrigal's face. "What?"

"In private?"

"Yeah? Obviously? Otherwise there'd be no point in—"

She's rolling off the bed, swiveling her shoulders. "Well, I won't ask about your private matters if you won't ask about mine. Should we head out?"

Is Gil okay? He seemed fine when you left him— he said he just needed a second. It's been more than a second, but... what could possibly happen to him in your manse? With Nice Richard looking on? You can check back later if he hasn't arisen. "Um, sure. Oof." She's hauled you to your feet. "You're in a good—"

She ignores you, and you trail her down the hallway. "Hoy!" You hear Earl before you see him. "Ladies! What good timing! Nettie and I were just discussing recent events—"

"Did he cry?" Pat says. "Earl won't tell me if he cried."

Madrigal drags out a bare wooden chair and plops down upon it. "Nope."

"Damn." Pat rubs the base of her chin. "No meltdown? Didn't even—"

"He threatened to kill us," you say helpfully.

"Oh, yeah, he does that. Think it makes him feel less impotent. And speaking of impotence, I heard you were planning on blowing Headspace to hell and back?"

You cast a sour glance at Earl. "What does it matter?"

"Untwist your knickers. I'm—" Pat cocks her head. "—gainfully employed. On top of that, I haven't sold the whole op out yet, have I? Two dozen delves, lips sown shut. Tell me why I'd start now."

"I mean, you have to admit the point," says Madrigal. "You have Management stopping by in three days? And no snake. Slipping them a plan instead—"

"You think they take exchanges? Or reward loyalty?" Pat scoffs. "It's all stick, Maddie. They haven't invented the carrot. And thanks loads for your trust, by the way."

"You kidn—" Madrigal eyes Earl and shuts herself up. "Trust is earnt. What the fuck were you saying about impotence?"

"Oh, yeah. Good luck on the kaboom idea. Sounds like a laugh. Are you suicidal?"

"Huh?" Pat's looking at you.

"Because this isn't a great way to off yourself, Charlotte. You'd be lucky if they shot you. More than likely, you're caught, then they do whatever they want to you. Maybe they lock you in whitespace to rot? Maybe they slap a badge on your chest and a pill in your mouth and call you an employee? Maybe they run experiments." She shrugs. "I can lend you a pistol if you just want to—"

(3/4)

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"I'm not going to be caught," you say.

"They have a thousand people and cameras. And the place is swarming with Management. I've been." She curls a lip. "Like I said, sounds like a laugh."

Where's Gil? Or Richard? They'd back you up— that maybe it'd be dangerous for a lesser individual like her, but for you infiltrating corporations, planting explosives, and liberating innocents is akin to a stroll on the beach. You're attempting to say this now, and with a little prompting you're sure it'd already be said. Instead, all you can think of is worms and knives and blood water and—

"Well," you say, "I— I have a plan, so."

"Already?" Madrigal says. "Shit, that was fast. And?"

"Huh?"

"What is the plan?"

"Yes?" Pat. "What is the plan?"

Damnit.

>Off the top of your head, any proper "exploding Headspace" plan ought to include these things: a way to get in, a way to escape notice, a way to locate whatever you're looking for, a way to physically get there, a way to cause destruction, a way to get out, and an ace up your sleeve in case things go south. This isn't really a "plan," though, just the skeleton of one, so you can't just tell them this alone.
>Headspace is a bigger and scarier target than anything you've tackled before, so you *will* have to spend some time and energy actually preparing. You don't have to have it figured out all right now, though.

>[1] Delegate. Um, yes, you have a— certainly you have a— Richard? Richard? Hello? Can Richard do his job and give you plan ideas? When he does, repeat those.
>[2] Flatter. Er, whatever the plan is, it certainly incorporates the prodigious talents of those present! In fact, if they have any ideas about how they might contribute said talents to the explosionment of Headspace, they should be encouraged to share them.
>[3] Scramble. Of course you have a plan! Maybe not all the the plan, but of course the outline of a plan. The general idea of one. Or a, uh, single idea. That's still something! (Write-in at least one idea — check the greentext above for a general outline!)
>[4] Deny. Didn't Madrigal just say she wouldn't pry about things? It's none of their damn business!
>[5] Write-in.

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>Announcements
Welcome back to Drowned Quest Redux! We will be entering into finals season this thread, so updates may be spotty or the thread may be cut short depending on how much I need to prepare. Apologies in advance.

>Schedule
One a day, occasionally more if the first one was short. There may be sporadic half-updates (no options) if I start writing too late in the evening, sorry in advance. I am in the PST timezone.

>Dice
We use a 3d100 roll over degrees of success system with crits. The base DC is 50. Modifiers may be applied to the roll or to the DC as relevant. The # of rolls that match or exceed the DC determine the result. Probabilities may be found in the Dice and Mechanics pastebin.

The degrees are:
0 Passes = Failure
1 Pass = Mitigated Success
2 Passes = Success
3 Passes = Enhanced Success
0/100 = Critical Failure / Critical Success [regardless of other rolls]

>Mechanics
The MC has a pool of 14 Identity ("ID"), which may be considered both HP and the measure of her current sense of self. It may be lost through physical, metaphysical, or emotional damage. It may be regained through write-ins, designated options, and at reasonable narrative points, including sleep. It may be spent on a flat +10 bonus to rolls, as well as on more elaborate metaphysical effects. Dropping to 0 ID is bad.

>Archive
https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=drowned%20quest%20redux

>Twitter
https://twitter.com/BathicQM

>Pastebins
https://pastebin.com/u/BathicQM

>Ask the characters (or the QM), get a drawn response eventually
https://curiouscat.live/BathicQM

>"Redux"?
This quest is a loose sequel to the original Drowned Quest, which ran for eight short threads in 2019. Reading the original may help with context in very early Redux threads, but ultimately is not required.

>I have a question/comment/concern?
Tell me!

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>LAST TIME ON DROWNED QUEST REDUX

After 30 threads of investigation, you present an irritated Real Ellery with your brilliant hypothesis: that, as a freelancer for Headspace, he helped to develop something that caused locitis. Because of his inside knowledge, Headspace's Management saw him as a potential danger and forced him into secret exile-- by threatening Madrgal's life. Now locked inside, time-dilated, and depressed, Ellery undertakes guerilla missions to euthanize locitis victims-- the people trapped in whitespace-- one by one.

You're nigh-entirely correct (as one might expect from an ACE DETECTIVE), and Ellery, worn-out, fesses up. He tells you more about locitis: that it isn't a disease at all, but severe side-effects from the way that Headspace manses get installed. Essentially, devices like the E.Z.-M.A.N.S.E. don't implant a manse into somebody: they create a metaphysical copy of somebody, implant a manse into the copy, swap the two, and destroy the original. Except... the originals aren't being destroyed. They're being imprisoned, en masse, for Law to be siphoned out of them. This is Not Good.

Oh well. You demand that Ellery help you out with your [SUNSTROKE], and he refuses, claiming to know nothing about it. You attempt to Advanced Gaslight him into helping, which freaks him and everybody else out, then commune with him in an attempt to escape the flak. Ellery catches you before you can get too far, but you slip out of your mind cage and find yourself in a sort of metaphorical junk pile, wherein you locate a sun! Which you promptly swallow, despite Ellery's protests, have some perfectly normal visions, and wake up to everybody staring at you... Richard included.

He's gotten the bright idea to appear in front of company, and you're forced to explain the snake/dad thing before getting out of there. Back in real life, you explain the Ellery situation to Gil, who doesn't seem too happy with your new plan to blow up Headspace. Your attempt to explain turns into an embarrassed downplaying of your breakdown last night, which Gil attempts to get you to open up about. You clear the air about the "licking incident," and discover that the sun-swallowing is causing Gil's blessing to light up a whole bunch. Whoops. You also tell him that Richard is nice now and drag him to your manse to demonstrate.

In your manse, Richard is indeed weirdly nice, though Gil still refuses to let him examine his new goo body until you provide moral support. Richard declares a clean bill of health, and Gil agrees to let you slice him open-- but you freak out over the prospect of harming him, and Richard has to help you make the incision. You discover that the beetles are still intact inside Gil's goo body, which soothes Gil enough to let him revert, magyckally, to a swarm of beetles.

Richard hauls you aside, and you grill him about his personality transplant. He is consistently and apparently genuinely warm and supportive of you, but struggles to remember anything about his (snake) personal life. He tells you that the sun you swallowed is a harmless "mimeme," before changing the topic: he wants to apologize for his former ill treatment of you. Despite your mixed feelings on the matter, you accept his apology and hug him.


-----
>TO-DO (Completed goals and solved mysteries: https://pastebin.com/3Q3nPDis)
>the shortest to-do list in many, many threads!

Short-term goals:
- Use, extract, or otherwise deal with the Wyrm stuff you got going on

Long-term goals:
- Blow up Headspace
- Resurrect Annie
- Regain your missing memories (...if possible)
- Find the Gold-Masked Person and their snake; reclaim the Crown
- In the meantime, continue collecting and storing Law (4/16)
- Make friends??? More friends? You don't know if Gil counts now

Mysteries:
- Who or what is Namway Co. and Headspace Corp.'s “Management”? What did they want with the clone of a snake?
- What kind of company(?) does Richard work for? What is its endgame? What does it want with you?
- What is the meaning of Jesse's spiral tattoo?
- Who is Horse Face investigating, and why?
- Who is the Gold-Masked Person? Why did they want your Crown? Where are they now?
- Why was Henry going on like you knew the all the cult GS already?
- Okay, seriously, why is everybody talking about the apocalypse now?

Ongoing assignments:
- Inform Eloise (and the Wind Court?) about anything you discover about Namway Co
-----


>Don't forget to scroll up and vote!

>>5617788
>[3] Scramble. Of course you have a plan! Maybe not all the the plan, but of course the outline of a plan. The general idea of one. Or a, uh, single idea. That's still something!
Maddie has some kind of an in with Sonny, right? If she can get him to let her in the offices again, she could bring along a beetlefied Gil, while we ride in Gil's manse. THen Maddie leaves us there and exits safely.
We'll also have to speak with Ellery again (ew) to pump him for as much intel as possible. If Pat has been there, pump her as well.

>>5617814
>Sonny
...Casey?

>>5617837
...Or him.

>>5617788
>>[2] Flatter. Er, whatever the plan is, it certainly incorporates the prodigious talents of those present! In fact, if they have any ideas about how they might contribute said talents to the explosionment of Headspace, they should be encouraged to share them.

>>5617788
>3
we uh maybe want to start with reconnaissance?
scope out the place more so we can make an accurate plan?
also need to get some beeg explosives

>>5617814
>>5618064
>You do have a plan!

>>5617958
>Do *you* have a plan?

Called for the [3]s, though maybe you'll get some outside input anyhow. Writing.

>>5617841
I admire your talent for coming up with new character names, anon :^)

>Plan A

"Uhhh," you say. "Uhhh. Well, we assuredly require explosives? Indeed! Large explosives, or— or incendiary devices of some description."

You can tell by their expressions that this brilliant plan sates neither Pat nor Madrigal, but Earl guffaws. "Now that's the fucking spirit! Go loud! You have some central location you wanted to go kabang, or were you gonna wire that stuff up wherever you can stick it? Cuz—"

"Oh, yes," Pat says. "Go ahead and murder innocents— and ruin their livelihoods while you're at it. Heroic."

"I'm not going to murder anybody," you say, affronted. "Anybody undeserving. And their livelihood sucks, so who cares? Though anyhow, I won't— I think it would be much cooler if I blew up one thing, not everything."

"Uh-huh."

"Cut the gullshit," Madrigal says. "You think one normal bomb's gonna up and destroy a whole fucking... what was he talking, a prison complex? One bomb. You don't think the bastards have invented the fire extinguisher?"

You wish this wasn't a credible point. "Um— when did I ever say it was a normal bomb? Clearly it'd be— it'd be a magyck— I mean, it would be super special, and impregnated with, um, mystic— it wouldn't be a real bomb! That's the point. It wouldn't even have to be a bomb. Just something big, and scary, and ideally explosive— right?"

"Flexibility's useful!" Earl says supportively.

"Okay, I guess." (You take this utterance as Madrigal's unilateral surrender.) "And I bet you know what thing's gonna be ideally exploded? Got a map, got a fucking man on the inside..."

You cross your arms. "Do you have a map?"

"No," says Madrigal, "but I'm not the one going on like I'm gonna storm the fucking place tomorrow."

"Did I ever say tomorrow? No? Ha!" You point. "You're making stuff up! How crude! All I said was that I had a plan, which I evidently do, and I— while I do not yet possess a man on the inside, perhaps I have already plotted about this! Perhaps it could be... you!"

She takes a moment to process the finger aimed square at her forehead. "Fuck no."

"But..." You pause. "You got a tour? From the guy in charge? You could smuggle—"

"I missed my tour," Madrigal says, "because I was K-I-D-N-A—"

"Thank you," Pat says over her.

You're not pleased at being interrupted, but it has given you a moment to reevaluate. Problem is, she's wrong: she did attend the Headspace tour. She left it in handcuffs. Of course, that was Gil going rogue, actually, but does Headspace know that? Can they distinguish? And if they threatened Ellery into exile with her, shouldn't she already be on a watchlist? How did she get the tour? ...Unless it was on purpose? Unless... unless...

You have no answers now. Better to change tacks. "Okay! You can sit at home and be a coward, if you want. Perhaps I'll smuggle my distinguished retainer Gilbert in, and he'll do a much better job than you ever could. Or I'll pick someone off the street, and they'll still probably do a better—"

1/2

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"If it helps," Pat drawls, "last I checked, they're always 'hiring.'"

You eye the air-quotation marks. "Hiring."

"I mean, what do you think they do to them?" She fails to answer her own question. "I don't think the checking's that extensive, probably because they figure they can beat down just about anybody. You hear their radio broadcasts?"

Your radio is buried somewhere in your tent, probably infested with worms. "...No?"

"Oh-ho! You're a lucky one." Earl reaches for his bug-thing (was it Buster?) and places it, squirming, in his lap. "The motherfuckers— 'scuze me, ladies— blitz the stuff. It's hard to broadcast, so it's not like anybody can really compete, you know? So it's ads and ads— current products, future products, hiring— and, you know, people need something to do, eh? They'll go nuts if they sit on their thumbs. Lookit Madman, huh?"

"Factually speaking," Pat says, "I think the world would've been better off if Ellery had sat on his thumbs. But then again, Management would've scooped up some guy with even more smarts and even less sense, and maybe we'd already be reamed. The point is— you walk up to a Headspace rep and ask for work, you'll get something." She pauses. "Maybe not you. You're distinctive. But somebody."

You were mainly saying Gil just to stick it to Madrigal, but now that you think on it... Headspace wouldn't know him, would they? Unless they catalogued all the jackers way back, but if the hiring's as fast and loose as Pat claims, you can't imagine that'd stop them. Much to consider. "I am distinctive. Thank you! Ahem. Speaking of Headspace reps, and whatnot, I read somewhere that a senior employee may reside in this very, erm, village?" You make eye contact with Earl, who's placing Buster on his shoulder.

"You're shitting me. Really?" He has one hand up to keep Buster on his shoulder, which is easier said than done— the thing wants to scuttle back up the wall, looks like. "I know everybody here! You're not telling me there's a Headspace bastard right on my— did you get a name?"

You think. "Rudy?"

"Rudy! Rudy! That..." He shakes his head. "I can see it! Were you wanting to talk to him? He doesn't like to answer the door."

"Oh," you say. "Well, yes, I was—"

"Doesn't like to speak through the door, either. Or leave it. Not an ordinary sort of guy, hmm?" He stops to pry Buddy's hooks off his face. "Makes sense that the bastard was hiding something! I can come along to help, if you want, but I can't say the guy likes me much... or anybody. Still!"

Still. Sounds like you need a strategy.

(Choices next.)

>[1] Knock on Rudy's door, posing as fellow Headspace people. (Bring Pat along, since she'd know what they're like the most.) Convince him that you want to talk about business. [Roll.]
>[2] Knock on Rudy's door, posing as reporters doing a fluff piece on Headspace. Request an "interview." [Roll.]
>[3] Maybe he's resistant to ordinary persuasion, but you you possess a powerful sorcerous bloodline! Also, Richard. Gaslight Rudy into admitting you. (Advanced Gaslighting.) [Roll.]
>[4] Okay, you don't need to *talk* to him: you just need to search his stuff, and/or interface with his innermost being. Force your way in! [Roll.]
>[5] Write-in.

For the anons who ate as clueless as me: we've learned about Rudy in Thread 19.
>Rudy Doheny— Project Lead — Hailing from Hellsbells, Hell, Rudy is accustomed to taking the heat! He enjoys stargazing—

>>5618887
>[5] Knock on Rudy's door, posing as a private investigator inquiring into the fate of one Leonard Medina on behalf of his recently drowned relative. Make up a sob story.

>>5618887
>>[3] Maybe he's resistant to ordinary persuasion, but you you possess a powerful sorcerous bloodline! Also, Richard. Gaslight Rudy into admitting you. (Advanced Gaslighting.) [Roll.]

>>5618887
backing >>5618903
anon did the research

>>5618887
>>5618903
supporting

>>5618903
>>5619173
>>5619187
>5

>>5619120
>3

Nice write-in: I'll give it to you without the roll. Since you're posing as somebody else, and not somebody Pat would have inside knowledge about, I'm going to assume that you ditch her, Earl, and Madrigal and bring along Gil+Richard.

Writing.

>>5618901
This is correct!

>Perfect recall

You think. You think. Then you wave your hand dismissively. "No, I fail to require your services at this time. And definitely not any of yours. I shall strike out on my lonesome, except for— Gil? Gil?" Gil fails to appear. "Um, hold on."

Scuttling away from the bemused group, you swing around the hallway corner and come face-to-face with— yes!— your loyal retainer, answering his summons. "Gil!"

"Hmm?" He looks disoriented.

"What took you so long? I require—"

"Um, sorry. I-I-I was just... nothing. Sorry. I-I wasn't... what do you need?"

If he were smart, he would've tossed out a reason. Now you're intrigued. "Nevermind. Did Richard talk with you? And what did he say? You can tell me, you know, as I did rescue you multiple times, and all he's ever done is say awful things—"

"I-I-It's not him! He was... helpful..." He's speaking to his feet. "...which was weird... nothing i-important happened, so, um, I'm sorry for being late, and..."

"But something happened? Look me in the eye."

"...Sorry..."

You kick the toe of his shoe. He flinches. "The eye, Gilbert! What did you do?"

"Nothing! Sorry! I-I-I-I-I just— I thought I should make use of my stuff, my new... stuff, and I-I know you wanted more work on the siphon, and I-I-I thought maybe I could leave me behind to take care of it? Which isn't normal— i-it's weird, and I didn't get permission, but Richard said you wouldn't mind, except I-I-I never know when he's telling the truth and when he's..." He ducks his head as he hunts for breath.

This requires a moment to process. "There's a second you still in the manse? And he's working on the siphon?"

Gil doesn't nod so much as he tremors his neck.

"Good idea! Sounds like it'll save a load of time. That's all you had to say?"

He looks deflated, which is all the answer you need. "Wow! Geez. You got yourself all worked up over that little thing? We ought to have another discussion about positive thinking, because— I mean, that can't be good for the heart, can it?" You pause. "Do you have a heart? Anyways. Back to things that actually matter— we are embarking! Together! Right now!"

Judging from the wobbling hands, Gil's still on the climb down from whatever emotional precipice he put himself on. He manages a "...What?"

"I," you say beneficently, "have single-handedly located a crucial witness in the case of the Headspace conspiracy. If we are to blow them up, we must interrogate him. But he's a dumb shut-in, so what I was thinking was we go in, pretend to be asking about his dead buddy— Leo? Leonard? Do you remember? I think you were—"

"..I-I don't..."

(1/TBC)

"Oh! No! You were being held hostage then, sorry. You remember that? The manse with the big tournament, and the monkey-thing— well, the whole bottom layer was where the Headspace people who made it used to be holed up. Then one of them kicked it— that's Leonard— and they had to get out of there, even though they left things unfinished... I think? Anyhow. Our crucial witness was the lead guy in that manse. Rudy?"

Gil has nothing remaining to say. "Rudy," you confirm. "So we are thus embarking to talkt to him. Yes? All caught up?"

"Um, I-I-I—"

"Great!" You spin on your heel. "Onwards!"

-

Earl doesn't seem to have any hard feelings about being excluded, and as a matter of fact instructs you about Rudy's dwelling-place with the air of a burden being lifted. Neither Pat nor Madrigal are effusive in their goodbyes, either, a fact you bury under a dozen repetitions of Rudy's "address": back the way you came, third tunnel, last on the right, watch for the stars. The last bit reads like a pleasant bit of poetic license before you return to the welcome juncture and remember the night sky installed in the ceiling, then realize that the "sky" continues down Tunnel #3. Gil does not share in your enthusiasm over this fact. Nevertheless, you trail your fingers along glowing pockmarks (and around doorframes) as you make your way to the end.

Eventually there's a hard cap of black stone in front of you, hot to the touch— perhaps it was too dangerous to tunnel further, or it was blocked off deliberately? It's hot as Hell in general, but in such a droning ambient way that it bears little notice. Like the water up your nose. To your right is a door, unlabeled, but the stars (really holes for nail-sized glorbs) encircle it.

You nod officiously at Gil, who hasn't come down much from the precipice. He links his hands. No matter! He's only there for moral support, anyhow, and as your second in case you're violently attacked. Or somebody else is violently attacked. Ahem. You have spent the short trip memorizing your deception, which goes something like...

...

...Er, you had something in mind! You're sure of it. It's just that your pure and honest heart, plus your noble spirit, are emblockening it from your foremost thoughts. While you could sit against the wall here and seek to retrieve your original plans, and undoubtedly you'd face little difficulty in doing so, it'd most likely be more efficient (and less embarrassing) to... um... Richard?

"Yes, primrose?"

Oh, good, you didn't have to yell. So there's this guy—

(2/TBC)

"I'm aware. You were seeking to exploit the information you have about his compatriot's untimely death?"

You eye the door. 'Exploit' sounds—

"Call it what it is, yes? Nothing wrong with a little exploiting." He smiles. "Even so, it's never been your strong suit. Would you like assistance?"

Does he have to ask so directly?

>[A1] Well, it's not your fault that you're an abysmal liar-- and it's a good thing, actually! (Your honest heart!) Therefore there's no shame in letting Richard, the liariest liar there is, do the lying for you. He's good at it. (-1 ID)
>[A2] He has now ruined your attempt to indirectly request assistance, so you've changed your mind. You don't need assistance at all. You will, by God, trick this stranger into thinking you're related to his deceased coworker.

>[B] Do you want to enlist Gil's help in the trickery at all? If not directed, he'll just stand there awkwardly. (Write-in. Optional.)

>[C] Write-in.

>>5620005
>[A1] Well, it's not your fault that you're an abysmal liar-- and it's a good thing, actually! (Your honest heart!) Therefore there's no shame in letting Richard, the liariest liar there is, do the lying for you. He's good at it. (-1 ID)
I don't have the heart to read about Charlotte bumbling any more.

>Gil is there to catch if Rudy tries to lie about how manses work, otherwise he's just our sidekick.

>>5620005
>A1
no Gil help at this stage. if we're the worst liar ever he can't be too far behind

>>5620005
>[A2] He has now ruined your attempt to indirectly request assistance, so you've changed your mind. You don't need assistance at all. You will, by God, trick this stranger into thinking you're related to his deceased coworker.
Charlotte doesn't double down, she quintuples down.

>>5620005
>[A1]

>>5620018
>>5620306
>>5620661
>Delegation

>>5620599
>Spite

Writing in a little while.

>>5620018
>I don't have the heart to read about Charlotte bumbling any more.
Fair, though I don't think (you)'ve been bumbling more than typical recently. If anything, you've been on an upward swing for the past couple threads.

>>5620306
>no Gil help at this stage. if we're the worst liar ever he can't be too far behind
Gil is actually a pretty agile liar when he's not a nervous wreck. (He is, after all, a criminal.) Problem is, well... he usually is a nervous wreck.

>A little help from your friends

Well, you'd like to make it absolutely clear: you do not require help in this situation. If Richard were absent, or dead, this would be no impediment to you whatsoever. Quite the opposite! Without him bothering you all the time, you'd already have charmed your way through Rudy's door. So you accepting any assistance whatsoever— that's you being generous, not to mention considerate of his fragile feelings, and he should be grateful for it. Got it?

"Charlie, you need to improve on your graciousness. You've soured a lot of people's goodwill over the years." Richard, audaciously, tilts his head. "Nevertheless, shall I count this as an intent of agreement?"

What is Gil doing? Gil is leaning against the far wall, his edges lit by all the faux-stars he's body-blocking, his gaze vacant. You snort in irritation. Fine. But only for his—

"Yes, yes." Richard slinks around you, tucking an unlit cigarette between his lips. He cradles your chin, pressing the pads of his thumbs underneath your ears, then reconsiders. "Would you knock first?"

He doesn't want to go through the trouble of prising control of your arm? You see how it is. "Remember," you say to Gil, "we're asking about Leonard— Leo?"

"Leonard," Richard says. "Medina." "Leonard," you repeat to Gil, who's opened his mouth. "Got it? We're doing this! I mean— I am doing this, without assistance, and—"

The cigarette brushes your ear as Richard leans over you. "Just knock, primrose."

You knock. When no immediate response comes, you knock thrice or four times more, then bang your fist against the unmoving door, then kick it ("Ow!"), then try the door handle, just in case. Nothing.

"Maybe he's out," Gil says.

"Out? What part of 'shut-in' didn't you—?" You kick again, more gently, then bang your fist another couple times. All of a sudden there's a creak, and you tense and step back, and Richard braces your jaw—

"SIMMER DOWN OVER THERE!" comes a lady's voice from down the tunnel. "YOU WANT TO WAKE THE VENTS?"

There's a silence. "Sorry," Gil calls back, and a distant door whams back shut. You sigh. Richard loosens.

Your door cracks open. Rudy's. All you can make out is an eye and a low voice: "Leave me alone," a man says. Presumably Rudy.

You mean to respond, but that's when Richard does it: drives his fingers into the skin of your jaw, and into your cheeks and neck and temples. Beneath them, your lower face tingles, thickens, goes claylike.

>[-1 ID: 9/14]

It's little surprise to you, then, when it begins to move without your prompting. "Mr. Doheny? Rudy?"

The words form in your head a quarter-second before they're spoken, but you have no illusions about their source. The door remains cracked, barely. "Am I at the right place? It's so hard to navigate around here— you wouldn't believe the difficulty I've had— you are Rudy Doheny?"

"...Yeah," says the eyeball.

(1/3)

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"Oh, thank goodness! If I'd come all this way..." Richard shifts his grip, and your expression turns officious. "Please, Mr. Doheny, it's terribly important. It's about one Leonard Medina?"

There's a long pause. The eyeball looks upward. "Never heard of him."

"Never heard of him? Mr. Doheny, would you like to see my badge?" (Your badge? Oh. Richard's palming you something.) "Leonard Medina is deceased."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Do you not?" You shove your foot into the crack in the door. "Mr. Medina was a pillar of his community, Mr. Doheny. He left behind a veritable town's-worth of people bereaved by his swift, untimely death, not to mention his devoted wife. They have pooled their chit to hire my services, and my investigation has led me to believe you may have valuable information."

"I didn't do shit," says the eyeball, and attempts to close the door on your foot. It doesn't work.

"Oh, no, Mr. Doheny! I don't mean to insinuate you're under suspicion— nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing at all. These people who hired me aren't looking for a neck on a rope— they just want answers, and answers are all I seek to provide. Would you care to let me in?"

«Grab the door,» staticks your head, and you grab the door. Immediately the flesh of your arm braids and tautens, and if Richard wasn't keeping your lips in a flat line you might've yelped— instead you get a «Open it, primrose,» and a moment later the door is flung open. Rudy still clings to the inside handle: he has a look like a cave-newt first exposed to sunlight.

"Thank you!" your mouth says, like you hadn't ripped the thing near off its hinges. You need no further instruction to traipse in cheerily, though you're gladdened that Gil is aware enough to follow behind.

Rudy is more ordinary-looking than you expected, with a mostly neat beard and a mostly tame mop of red hair. Contrarily, his home is— could it even be called that? As best you can tell, it's a single round room, with no furniture except a stepstool and a crumple of blankets and no decoration except a punctilious array of faux-stars. They're the same as outside, except in quantity: in Rudy's ceiling there must be hundreds, if not thousands, drilled into swooping, inscrutable patterns. Despite this, the room is not well-lit, and you wonder if Rudy has something of the cave-newt after all.

(2/3)

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He says nothing to you, only stands like a post in the center of the room. You pace in detective-y fashion, Richard having loosed you. "Nice place."

Rudy remains implacable. Gil is throwing you looks. "Okay, whatever. Could you tell me your relation to Leonard Medina?"

Huh. Now that it's not just his eyeball, Rudy clearly reacts to the name: his fingers flex, and his focus slips into the distance. All he says, though, is "Please leave me alone."

"Do you know Leonard Medina?"

"I've never heard of him. Please—"

You sigh. "He's your co-worker? At Headspace?"

Ah-ha. If you thought 'Leonard' got a reaction, you hadn't seen this: Rudy full-body flinches, and blinks hard, and coughs wetly. His eyes are hazy. "What?"

"Headspace? They make manses? You're a lead—"

Flinch. Blink. Cough. "What?"

Now you throw Gil a look. "Um... hold on."

>[1] Deduce what's going on here. (Write-in. This doesn't require anything specific from previous threads, just general plot/setting knowledge and some extrapolating.)

>[2] Carry on with your private investigation.
>>[A] Ask Rudy about his stars.
>>[B] Ask him why he hasn't furnished the place. He sleeps on the ground?
>>[C] Ask what he thinks of Hellsbells.
>>[D] Ask more about Leonard, and/or Headspace. (Anything specific?)
>>[E] Never mind, the guy's useless like this. Grab his arm and go straight to [Communion.] (Spend 1 ID.)
>>[F] Write-in.

>[3] Write-in.

>>5621082
>[1] Deduce what's going on here.
Hmhmhm. A memory wipe, like with locitis. Or maybe even something like the Fakellery situation.
We might have to commune with him and/or break into his manse.

>>5621082
>[2] Carry on with your private investigation.
>[A] Ask Rudy about his stars.
>[B] Ask him why he hasn't furnished the place. He sleeps on the ground?
>[D] Ask more about Leonard, and/or Headspace. (Anything specific?)

>>5621082
>1
Yeah looks like weaponized locitis
very strictly enforced NDA

>3
see if we can short circuit him by saying "Headspace" over and over

>>5621082
>>5621621
+1

>>5621099
>>5621621
>>5621945
>[1]

>>5621515
>[2]

Called for your brilliant deduction nice job, as well as some additional probing. Writing.

>Eureka

It takes some additional eye contact before Gil, traipsing over, gets the memo. "Something's the matter with this guy," he hisses. "I-I mean, Headspace hiring a fuck-up, I'd believe, but this goes past—"

"Shh," you say. "I don't think he's real."

"Ohh! Aw, shit!" Gil peers over your head at Rudy. "You know, that'd make a lot of... not real how?"

"Um, not like you. Not beetles." (You hope.) "What I mean is, I don't think that's Rudy. No memory is one thing, but no civilized person would live in this hovel, right? And I assume he used to be normal, since he looks normal, and I don't think Headspace would put a— a slovenly wretch in a position of importance? Surely?"

"Based on their output..." Gil mumbles, but he doesn't press the issue. "I-I mean, okay, but if he's not the guy, is he— is he goo? They can get it really close... I-I-I mean, obviously..."

Okay. You do feel a teensy bit sorry for Gil, who's the entire reason that you're able to detective this out at all. It's not his fault he got the thing excised from his memory, and if he retained any of it you're sure he'd be well ahead of you. That all being said, you're not sorry enough to keep it to yourself. "Nay! This so-called 'man' is not of a goolike nature, but is something else entirely. He is afflicted with..." You pause for effect. "...locitis."

"Really?" Gil, bless his heart, can't stop staring at Rudy. "You think they'd do that to their own people? I-I know they're a lot of bastards, but that—"

"Not the fatal kind! I think. More like..." You suck in your cheek. "You know how the employees said they hadn't left in years and years?"

"Yeah? Oh!"

He's pieced it all together, from the way he scrapes his hair back, but you don't feel like stopping short. "And you remember what I told you about the way they install the manses? Ellery said they can't do it directly, so they make a copy of the person, install the manse in that, and—"

"Swap them! Shit!" Huh. Rarely have you seen Gil invigorated. "So for him, the real one's inside Headspace right now—"

A wet cough from behind you. "Keep it down!" you say.

"Sorry... um... the real one's in You-know-what, while the shitty copy deflects suspicion? Wait, isn't that the guy? The one who I— Ellery." He snaps his fingers. "You think it's the same thing?"

"Fake Rudy," you muse.

"Fake Rud... where are you going?"

You're swinging around to meet Rudy face-to-face: if he's disturbed by your and Gil's flurry of whispers, he fails to show it. "Mr. Doheny!" you say. "I have some further questions about Headspace, if you don't mind. What prompted you to first begin working at Headspace? Did Headspace recruit you? Did Headspace offer you a salary of any kind? How did you achieve your current position at Headspace? Are you satisfied with how Headspace is treating you? Are you— oh, goodness."

(1/4)

Mr. Doheny, who glazed over before the end of the first sentence, underwent a steady decline from there: at present he is doubled over, retching. You remove yourself from the splash zone before the inevitable happens, which is to say Rudy opening his jaw and emitting a gushy splatter of silver goop. "I don't feel well," you watch his reflection say, and you're inclined to believe him.

"Shit!" Gil's drawn up beside you. "Would you look at that? Up high."

"Huh?" You check the ceiling first, then note his palm raised flat and perpendicular with the ground. Oh God! The barbaric 'slapping' ritual? Must he sully your victory? You thought you'd—

Gil's exuberance has dimmed a tad, you notice, as his palm lowers to an appropriate height. Oh. Should you humor—?

No, because your hand is taken up, and shook, and Gil's still grinning— grinning! Has obtaining a body really affected him in such a way? He's saying things like "Aces," and "You called it," and apropos of nothing your lips are creeping up too— you did call it, didn't you? Didn't even need a big investigation, just relied on your brilliant intuition, and whatnot. Ha. Wow!

>[+2 ID: 11/14]

The handshake and grin are dropped abruptly, perhaps on account of Gil remembering his place: he reddens, sliding his hand down to grasp his suspenders. You try to say something, reconsider, and attempt to slot in something else you noticed. "Um, so you know, you haven't been stuttering. ...Again."

You catch only a snatch of his reaction— as if slapped— before turning to acknowledge a touch of your shoulder. "It really was an excellent call, Charlie," Richard says. "I'm pleased I left you to it— I think I myself might have noted the stereotypy. The repetitive behavior?" He saw your look. "The compulsive installation of the lights, much like the compulsive note-taking of the original specimen, so to speak? Although he was— well, is— a far more advanced model, while poor Rudy is more of a—"

Could he stop sliding in to undercut every decent thing you accomplish?

"Undercut? I congratulated..." (You narrow your eyes.) "Erm, I apologize if I conveyed an impression of undercutting. That was not my intention. All I came to do, really, was to install a layer of appropriate caution before you go careening off into any subconsciousnesses—"

You didn't say anything about communing. ...Didn't you tell him to quit reading your mind?

"It's not voluntary, primrose—" He's tying something around your waist. "You're a bit of a book on tape, if you can believe it. Regardless, as long as you're safe, I have little cause to stop you. Is that too tight?"

There's a thin cord around you, perceptible only— you discover— if you tilt your head at a painful angle. It isn't too tight.

"Good." Richard pats your back. "I'll reel you out should anything occur. How about you warn your friend before you spook him further?"

(2/4)

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Your retainer. You turn back to Gil, who peers tightly up at you. "...What'd Richard say?" he says.

"Nothing. Do you know what a book on tape is? ...No, nevermind. I—" You drop your voice. "I am going to utilize my, um, magyckal powers upon the personage of Fake Rudy. So if I start to foam at the mouth or anything, drag me away, okay? Otherwise, don't worry about it. I shall report with my discoveries posthaste. Cool?"

"Uh," says Gil. "Cool."

"Cool!" You clap your hands together, then spin on your heel to face Fake Rudy— who's been entranced, apparently, by the puddle of his own weird vomit. (You hadn't thought of Fake Ellery as being a particularly good replica, given the memory blocks and heart-stabbing and whatnot, but as an object of comparison...) Is it worthwhile to give him warning? Or a preamble? Probably not. You touch his shoulder, curl your toes, contemplate whether you should develop a catchphrase for this. Wouldn't a catchphrase be easier? At least it'd provide a clear mechanism: at the moment you have no explanation for how you've been pulling this off, other than a sorcerous bloodline and/or concentrated vigor, and neither of those seem to explain the foreign, silky detachment that descends upon you. Like you're seeing the person from a great height, or in clean slivers on a table, like you're seeing right through them— seeing right through—

Fake Rudy has no interior. Fake Rudy is a wafer-thin ocean-wide sheet of mirror, and you go sailing merrily through him. Bam! Crash! Smash! Easy enough. Tether stretching behind you, you slam short into somebody else.

Into somebody else. Into their head, from first-person perspective. Or something, or something: you're not yourself, from your lack of a bad eye, and you're not in control, from your inability to blink or twitch or do anything at all. You're spectating. What are you spectating?

Whoever "you" are, you're sat around a table in a little room, surrounded by small-print documents and fidgeting people. "—ready for launch," somebody's saying. "Needs another round of QC—"

"What QC?" somebody else says. "Didn't they get downsized?"

A wave of nervous tittering. "That's bunkum," says the first somebody, irritably. ("You" are staring at the table, which complicates your ability to follow the conversation.) "The QC team is fully intact, and then some. Haven't you been in contact, Rudy?"

"You" startle up, but say nothing. "Your" hand goes up to your temple.

"Rudy? Er, is everything alright?"

"Gee, look at his eyes," says a woman to the side. "You think it's withdrawal?"

"Withdrawal? Don't be crass, Gretchen, I'm sure he's— Rudy?" Your field of vision's closing: you can barely make out the gaggle of people around "you". "Can you hear us? Marc's gone to ring up Health, but—"

(3/4)

The cord tightens, and without warning or ceremony you are tugged up, out of Rudy, through the wreckage of Rudy, into existence once more. Richard is holding your shoulder; Gil has edged closer than is technically appropriate. Fake Rudy, of questionable consciousness, is on the floor. You blink hard. "Why'd you have to—"

"Wherever you were," Richard says, "the situation was rapidly declining. And let me see, you were—?" He raises his hand to your forehead. "Heavens. Charlie, it's rude to force your way into—"

You bat him away. "I didn't mean to! Um, sorry, Gil. Not you." (Gil nods tentatively.) You mean— you didn't mean to! It just happened, so he can hardly blame you for—

"Yes, yes. But now you know, don't you? People don't take well to uninvited guests." Richard steps back. "Not to mention what you did to the poor substitute. Judging by the original specimen, he's bound to bounce back, but..."

If he could stop judging you, that would be great. It's not like he helped.

"No. That's true." He cocks his head.

>[1] Write-in? (Optional. Real choices after I've slept, toss something in early if you prefer)

>>5622210
>What happened? Did we break through to the real Rudy?

I did hypothesize that Headspace copies its employees, but I thought they make the copies do the work. An a second thought, why would I not think they'll try to cut corners there?

A bit more info from thread 19 for anons:
>Rudy led the team making a manse for one Mr. Flick
>There were 2 more coworkers besides him and Medina - Norma Voss and Norma Festermacher. No Marc or Gretchen.
>Festermacher seemed to really like Leonard.
>Leonard had a son, whose likeness he gave to some of the NPCs
>Here's what Ellery said about Rudy being from Hell: "Headspace is local, and there's only so many settlements in walking distance. By which I mean, uh, next to none.". Which means we might be able to find the other employees(' copies) around.

>[A1] Relay to Gil what happened.
>[A2] Too strange. Refrain.

>[B1] No, no— you're not sitting around and letting Richard *hijack* something you did all by yourself! You were doing just fine before he cruelly yanked you out of there, and if you *weren't* doing fine you could've handled it yourself. You're heading back in there until you learn something useful.
>[B2] UGH. Sit around and let Richard lecture you about how one "properly" barges into another's mind. Hope that Fake Rudy doesn't die in the meantime, and/or that no nosy neighbors stop by. *Then* head back in. (-1 ID from boredom)
>>[A] Any particular questions? (Write-in. Optional.)
>[B3] Okay, you know you wanted intel, but this is real weird. Maybe you ought to... er... report back to Earl and co for now, then consider whether you stop back later.
>[B4] Write-in.


>>5622255
You can ask this of Richard as well.

>>5622446
>[A1] Relay to Gil what happened.
>[B2] UGH. Sit around and let Richard lecture you about how one "properly" barges into another's mind. Hope that Fake Rudy doesn't die in the meantime, and/or that no nosy neighbors stop by. *Then* head back in. (-1 ID from boredom)
>>[A] Ask whether we broke through to the real Rudy somehow.

>>5622446
>>[A1] Relay to Gil what happened.
>>[B2] UGH. Sit around and let Richard lecture you about how one "properly" barges into another's mind. Hope that Fake Rudy doesn't die in the meantime, and/or that no nosy neighbors stop by. *Then* head back in. (-1 ID from boredom)
>>>[A] Ask whether we broke through to the real Rudy somehow.

>>5622446
>[A1] Relay to Gil what happened.
>>5622446
>[B3] Okay, you know you wanted intel, but this is real weird. Maybe you ought to... er... report back to Earl and co for now, then consider whether you stop back later.

>>5622446
>A1
>B3
somewhat paranoid that real rudy will have a hint on what was happening and if we go in again they'll be ready, and since no one wants the right back in A2 B1 combo it's better to not do it at all

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Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>5622454
>>5622964
>>5622988
>>5623193
>[A1]

>>5622454
>>5622964
>[B2]

>>5622988
>>5623193
>[B3]

Called for telling Gil; flipping between lecture and dipping out. Writing.

>>5622255
> An a second thought, why would I not think they'll try to cut corners there?
Checked & kek, yes.

>Cutscene skip

If Richard has any more to say, he doesn't get the chance: "Um, i-i-is everything okay?" Gil says. "You sort of... um..."

Right. Yes. "Was I foaming at the mouth?"

"...No..."

"Then it's like I said! There wasn't any problem!" You put your hands on your hips. "All I did was a little tiny bit of communion, and then Richard had to go and interrupt me. Tell me how that's fair, exactly?"

Gil rubs his forehead. "What even i-is 'communion'?"

"Oh!" You straighten up. "It's quite simple! I— I utilize my pure and noble spirit to gaze into the heart of man... and beast, sometimes, but mostly man. And thus I may ascertain their innermost feelings, and communicate all direct-like, and..."

Well, you thought it was simple, but he doesn't look convinced. "You get into people's heads?"

"I said hearts," you say.

"No. No. You—" He's waving a finger in your direction (in your opinion, quite impertinently). "This i-i-i-is what you did to me! When I got all fucked up, you went i-i-i-inside—" Finger jabbing at his temple. "You mean you do that all the time?!"

"Not all the time, just... sometimes? I thought you knew about—"

"Enough so there's a name, Lottie? I-I-If I heard about it, then I didn't..." He takes a breath. "How do you do this?"

"Um, does it matter? I use my pure and noble spirit, like I said, and I have to touch them, and look at them funny, sort of..." Why is he being so pushy? "I don't need to know the details. It's magyck."

"Magic."

"Yeah! And you can't go and deny it, Mr. Glowypants— I know I told you about my sorcerous bloodline. It makes perfect sense."

Gil's eyes go real big. "You said you had god blood."

He was listening to you! "Yes! Precisely!"

"What god?"

You close your mouth.

"Lottie? What god?"

What is Richard doing? Watching placidly. What a help. "Uhhhh," you say, "I don't see how this is relevant information— aren't we getting sort of off-topic? Gods, schmods... you didn't even let me tell you what happened! Yes! For, after I enacted the rite of communion upon False Rudy, I was thrust into the— um, hang on." Richard?

"Yes, primrose?"

Were you actually— was that the real Rudy? You were in the real Rudy? Inside Headspace.

"That," says Richard, "would appear to be the case, yes."

Huh. Great. "—I was thrust into the eyeballs of True Rudy! Indeed. I mean, I couldn't... I couldn't do anything, to be clear. I wasn't controlling him. But I witnessed a discussion of some kind, which— think of the possibilities, Gilbert! Are you thinking of them?"

He's looking at his feet. "I-I-I need a smoke."

(1/3)

"Oh," you say, put-out. "I don't know if you should get his house all smoky... the ventilation doesn't seem so good?"

"I-I'll think of something."

"Okay." You watch restlessly as he begins to dig around in his pocket. "Let me know if you want to hear what the Headspace people were saying..."

Richard, leaned against the wall, clears his throat. (Are the faux-stars shining out through him?) "Charlie, you can't be thinking of going back in there."

You fold your arms. Is he going to help this time? He's making eye contact with you: you make eye contact right back. Well, is he?

He sighs out his nose. "If you're prepared to hear a primer on how—"

You're not. Is he going to help in a better way? With less talking? What if his boring lecture gives Management enough time to track your down and kidnap you from Rudy's eyeballs, huh? He'd be real sorry he tried to tell you a bunch of dumb unnecessary things, and not just what to do so you don't bother Rudy more. Or any more than you have to, anyhow.

Is Nice Richard becoming irritated? He's still capable of that? "You're asking a lot of me, primrose."

...And he's, er, your beloved father? (Kind of?)

"So I am." He sighs again. "Come here."

You trot over smugly, stopping in front of him, and he reaches to grasp your cheek. "I'll amend this to a hands-on demonstration. No complaining."

You? Complain? As the smell of smoke begins to permeate the room (gee, thanks, Gil), Richard screws his eyes shut. "When I say so, hold up however many fingers you like. Just put them where you can see them. Understood?"

You nod, then think better of it. Understood!

"Excellent." Eyes still shut, he breathes in.

>[-1 ID: 10/14]

Something in your head inflates; something begins to press against the inside of your skull, and the inside of your sinuses, and especially against the backside of your eyeballs. Your eyes strain in their sockets. "Richard!" you hiss.

"Fingers," he says benignly.

The bastard! You hold up five fingers.

"Five."

You hold up eight fingers.

"Eight."

You hold up a particular finger.

"One. Thank you for your cooperation." You are released. "Was the case demonstrated?"

He was seeing through you?

"Yes. In an amateurish fashion, hence the— well, you felt it. And you're more adapted to sudden intrusions than most." He smiles thinly. "If executed properly, it should be nothing of that degree. I'd like to demonstrate that as well."

No.

"So faithless. Here." He reaches out again before you can wriggle away, closing his eyes as he does. You feel something in the back of your mind. "Fingers."

You hold up two particular fingers.

"Two. I don't think your aunt would approve of your attitude, primrose." Opening his eyes, he pushes your hands down. "Are you feeling quite alright?"

(2/3)

You're fine. He's the one who attacked you, and Gil's the one who's— for no reason, he's—

"You've invoked some complex feelings. I think it's wise that he's chosen to step back and process them, rather than let them affect how he treats you in the moment. You could take a lesson from that, yes?" He nudges your forearm. "Nevertheless. Did you experience a difference the second time?"

What does he think?

"I'm attempting to make this interactive, Charlie. You didn't want the primer." Richard checks his wristwatch. "There was a difference, which was a result of a change in method. In the first instance, I was seeing 'through your eyes' in a literal fashion. Unfortunately, as you are already seeing through the self-same eyes, it becomes crowded and painful. The solution is to exercise appropriate control over the situation." He pauses to check that you're listening. "Rather than attempt to achieve 1:1 vision, imagine yourself watching at some distance— through a window, for example, or via camera obscura. This will not crowd the recipient."

That's it?

"We could quibble over which visualization produces the least interference— I prefer a viewing chamber to a window, frankly— but in broad strokes yes."

He could've fit that into one sentence. He could've told you that one sentence immediately after he yanked you out, then you could've been back in immediately.

"Well," says Richard, "I suppose so, yes. But I feel as though you would have been lacking the surrounding—"

God-damnit. You pry yourself off the wall and stalk over to Fake Rudy. Is he breathing? He's still on the ground. His eyes are open, which is... good? Maybe? It probably doesn't matter if he's dead or not, so long as the path to the real one remains open. There's only one way to find that out.

"Charlie! I haven't re-tied the—"

You bend your knees, graze Fake Rudy, see through.

-

You drop through a night sky: the stars, upon closer inspection, are twinkling splinters of mirror.

-

You land... where?

>[1] In a cramped, brightly lit... apartment? Bedroom? The decor is sterile— some of it has prominent Headspace branding.
>[2] At a long orange (...cafeteria?) table, surrounded by a few other people and facing a plate of indiscernible mush.
>[3] In line for a... pharmacy? Or some sort of health-center. It's a very long line.
>[4] Write-in? (Subject to veto.)

>>5623922
>[3] In line for a... pharmacy? Or some sort of health-center. It's a very long line.

>>5623922
>[2] At a long orange (...cafeteria?) table, surrounded by a few other people and facing a plate of indiscernible mush.
lunchtime is the best time to chat about classified information

>>5623922
>[2] At a long orange (...cafeteria?) table, surrounded by a few other people and facing a plate of indiscernible mush.
Drowned Quest Slopdux

>>5623922
>>[2] At a long orange (...cafeteria?) table, surrounded by a few other people and facing a plate of indiscernible mush.

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Stayed up doing school stuff, and I have a morning class. Update tomorrow. Here's some doodle Rudys as small compensation

>>5625332
wow he scraggly.

>>5625610
Headspace wageslavery.

>>5624523
>>5624962
>>5625039
>[2]

>>5624519
>[3]

Called for [2] and writing.

>>5625610
>>5625611
The face of a man with an amphetamine dependence and 5 hours of sleep.

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>Shoot the shit

...

"...sick of this. You think they take out the flavor on purpose?"

"Is that even a question? If the base stuff was any good, nobody'd shell out for the meal packs." Shiny, fingerprinted orange table. Thick plate. Blue cutlery, though you don't know why— whatever's on the plate needs nothing more than a spoon, or potentially a straw. The babbling of a surrounding crowd. "Not that they're much better."

"You're going to the wrong places. Everything on the beaten path is shit. Go off-peak—"

"You mean on the clock, Vic?"

"Guy's got to eat, doesn't he? Off-peak, and hit up the dorm vends, not—"

Denim slacks, a fuzzy vest, freckled arms. The plate is barely touched.

"I don't know why you all care so much. Anything's fine with enough powder." The scraping of a chair. The plate at the end of the table is coated in white flakes, like dandruff. "Not to mention it's free of charge? What I'm hearing, you'd rather starve than—"

A chorus of disagreements: "Yeah, enough powder to kill a—" "—a little flavor—" "—lick the sole of the shoe, or just the—" "Gullshit. I don't know about you, but I didn't have to eat. Went months between, and I was fine with that. I come here, I'm hooked up on stims, next thing..." The clank of a spoon. "Starving. What gullshit is that? Look me in the eye and tell me Synth couldn't jigger the formula—"

"Rudy?" somebody says. "Everything good? Little early to be nodding off... Rudy?"

"Oh, hell. Rudy? Buddy?"

"Rudy? You—"

You— damnit! God-blessed! You are aware, you are yourself, you are not dissolved into perceptual soup. You are Charlotte Fawkins, and are currently making an innocent man's head explode. Best stop. Just have to visualize a... a...

How easy was that? Here you have yourself (albeit vague, runny, with a variable amount of fingers), a black void, and a window-type mechanism. If you press your face to it, there's a squishy barrier, but you can see outside just as clearly as—

Well, not at the moment. Rudy's rubbing his eyeballs. "Sorry... sorry... I'm..."

"Sheesh." "Get off on scaring us, man?" "Is everything okay? I heard about an incident at the lead meeting—"

"...It's nothing." In comparison to everybody else, Rudy's voice is deep and hollow-sounding. "Migraines, or something. No need to blow it out of..."

"Are they new?" A goateed man is licking mush off the back of his spoon. "Sure you timed the stimmie right? Sounds like withdraw—"

"You're asking if a project lead timed his damn stimmies, Vic?" A woman, neatly dressed.

"Well, everybody makes—"

"I timed it," Rudy says, and squiggles his own spoon around in the mush.

"Yeah, see?" The woman pauses. "Did you go to see Health, Rudy?"

"Yes."

(1/2)

"And?"

"Clean bill. Not a single thing wrong with me." Rudy props his cheek on his hand. "So it's nothing. Stress at worst."

"At worst? That's the worst you can think of? Come on, try a little harder." The window rattles with Rudy's flinch: a balled-up napkin has been tossed at him. "Maybe you picked up a brainworm from the last build! Maybe someone put a slow-acting poison in your ten-pack? Maybe Management's about ready to pack things in, so there's poison going in all our ten-packs, and you're just the—"

"Cut it out," Rudy says, more urgently than irritably. "Be serious. They've been around a lot lately."

"I am being serious." It's not Vic but a different man, grey-eyed, who leans back against his chair. "Is it true that there's nothing planned after the next big roll-out?"

Rudy's vision shifts sideways. "I can't talk about this."

"Nothing planned. There's always something planned. I think they've just about wrung us dry, Rudy— has Management told you what it's all for? And no 'making dreams come true' gull. Maybe the management believes that, but look at me and tell me Management— I mean Upper Management— gives a single flying shit. We're just meat." The grey-eyed man balls another napkin. "Slaughter's any week now."

There's a taut silence. Rudy breaks it. "You're going under if you keep this up. I'm serious. Any single one of them in earshot—"

"Man, screw under. Genius Howard's going to get the whole table downsized." Someone stands with a clatter. Rudy doesn't look. "I wasn't here, got it?"

Hurried footsteps. The neat woman runs a finger under her collar. "What are you toying at, Howard? Fancy yourself an insurrectionist?"

"What do you take me for? Do I seem like I skulk around, hatching plots?" Howard laughs, once. "I don't think there's anything to be done. Keep your head down, maybe they like you enough to kill you fast."

"You need to shut up," Rudy snaps, and if by magyck the whole room quiets. Oh. He's looking up, out— three people are entering the room. They have dark glasses.

Then, after a hitch, conversation resumes: quieter, with less laughter. "Who could've guessed," Rudy mutters, and eats his mush. So does the rest of the table.

>[1] Stick around. You've only ever heard about Management, never seen them. This could be invaluable information.
>[2] Get out. You'd rather *not* see Management face-to-face, actually. Not with the risk of being discovered.
>[3] Write-in.

>>5626397
>[1] Stick around. You've only ever heard about Management, never seen them. This could be invaluable information.

>>5626396
>>[1] Stick around. You've only ever heard about Management, never seen them. This could be invaluable information.

>>5626397
>1

Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>5626443
>>5626739
>>5626744
Called for [1]. Flipping to see if you're caught: 1 = yes, 2 = no

Then writing...? If it doesn't get done within the next few hours, it'll be published usual time.

>>5627098
>50% chance of being caught
Oh fuck

>>5627101
Management is serious business.

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>Press your luck

If only Rudy were less wary! Rather than getting an eyeful of the people you've heard so much about, you're forced to witness the dirty stuff of eating: the mush is chopped and greenish-brown, and with every scrape oily liquid pools behind it. What luck it apparently tastes like nothing, rather than how it looks; what luck taste isn't a sense you're plugged into. Your only reprieve is the occasional flick upward, just long enough to process Management's latest location (they are zigzagging in your direction), then back down to the table and plate and spoon.

You know something's happened when there's a chorus of scraping: everybody at the table is pulling their chairs in. Dirty napkins are hidden under plates. Rudy, to your auditory displeasure, scarfs down the last of his mush, wipes his mouth, hides his napkin, looks up.

They don't need introduced. Management, here, is three people: two women, crisp and dark; one man, sleek and nigh-albino. Their suits and pantsuits and pencil skirts are white and black and the grey of coal. The man's tie is solid red.

Facially, they all look the same: not identical, but something like first cousins. Their noses are slight, their ears small, their lips thin, their chins moderate. You can discern little of the top halves of their faces, because all three are wearing mirrored sunglasses. From what you can see, their expressions are neutral.

"Mr. Keene, Mr. Mariscal, Ms. Ly, Ms. Boykin. Mr. Doheny." The Management man's voice sounds oddly processed. "How does this evening's meal please you?"

Everybody, Rudy included, mumbles that they're very pleased.

"Mr. Keene?" the left-hand Management woman says.

Okay, not everybody. Not Howard, who picks up an unused fork and runs his thumb against its tines. The rest of the table looks down or sideways. After another moment, he hunches his shoulders.

"It's fine. Good."

"How agreeable," the right-hand woman says, as exhales are taken. "It has been formulated to fulfill all nutritional requirements."

"You can taste it," Howard mutters. The Management man speaks over him. "Mr. Doheny."

Are you becoming attuned to Rudy's physical state, or was it your stomach that dropped? It's not that you're concerned about being caught— of course you're too clever for that to ever occur, positive thinking— it's basic conditioning. The way the man delivered Rudy's last name is exactly how Richard says 'Charlotte Fawkins.'

"...Yes?"

Despite the sunglasses, it's blatant that all three of them are staring at Rudy. "We were appraised of a medical incident you suffered earlier this day. How has it progressed?"

"..." Rudy clears his throat. "It was passing. I received a clean bill of health afterward."

Silence from Management. Silence from the group. Silence from Rudy, who is scritching the underside of the table. Are they staring at Rudy? You prickle.

(1/3)

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"...How fortunate," the left-hand woman says. "Do not ail yourself from overexertion. You are a valuable employee."

"Good day to you all," the right-hand woman says, and the three of them file off in perfect unison.

It feels like a full minute before anybody relaxes. Rudy exhales. "Well, shit," somebody says. "Nutritional requirements," somebody else says. "It sounds like they like you, Rudy," the neat woman says. "That wasn't so bad."

"It could've been worse." Rudy rubs his nose and stands. "I think I'm going to turn in."

So does everybody else, apparently. After hasty goodbyes, the table disperses. You watch dully as Rudy walks, walks, walks, walks through what must be the residential side of Headspace: you catch glimpses of sports courts, ludicrous topiaries, and approximately a billion of those moving walkways, some of them suspended well in the air. Rudy powerwalks down a moving stairs (how dangerous!), swipes an identification card at an intimidating gate, and beelines for a rounded yellow... building? You can hardly call these things houses, though they have doors, roofs, and tiny windows: they must be the size of your tent, if not smaller. There's a postcard-square of vibrant grass outside each, and a tiny trim of rainbow flowers. The narrow street in-between the buildings is of fresh asphalt.

Rudy treads on his grass and flowers to reach his yellow door, which schinks open with another swipe of the card. Inside, he jabs a button to close it, looses a deep breath, and falls backwards upon his bed.

This is not difficult to do, as the bed consumes half his living space. (The "house": definitely smaller than your tent.) The ceiling is a flat white, freckled with pale-green decals in the shape of stars. As Rudy sits up, the rest of the interior isn't quite so charming: it boasts a tiny yellow nightstand/desk/table/dresser, a sink/cabinet, a mirror shaped like a blob, a door for a closet(?), and a well-used bulletin board, the thumbtacks tiny spheres.

Rudy feints toward the mirror— even though you know what he looks like, the reflection still startles you— but stoops instead to pick up a flyer discarded on the laminate floor. Slid under his door, perhaps? He grunts as he reads it: "WAKE UP!" it says, in block letters. "YOUR BODY HAS BEEN STOLEN! JOIN—"

He crumples it up and tosses it in a chipper yellow wastebasket, then, thinking better of it, grabs the ball of flyer, runs the sink, and douses it until it melts in his hand. He shreds it in his fingers, then, and tosses it back away.

(2/3)

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Then he turns back to the mirror. You know what Rudy looks like: Real-Rudy is identical to Fake-Rudy, apart from a change of clothing and some weariness around the eyes. But does he have to take up your whole field of view? Does he have to— oh, God— lean so close his nose touches the mirror, and take his eyelid and pull it open and stare searchingly into the black tunnel of his pupil? Oh, God, it's flexing. You're not in reality behind his eyes, right? It's only a metaphor. He can look as hard as he wants, but there's nothing for him to see, and you are perfectly—

He's breaking away, going to his bulletin board, tearing off an uneven corner of paper. Pulling an inky pen from a cup on the the nightstand/etc., he scribbles something down without looking. He returns to the mirror.

The paper in his upraised palm says: "IS SOMEBODY THERE?"

—safe. After a moment, Rudy lowers the paper and scribbles something else. "IS SOMEBODY THERE? WHAT IS HAPPENING?"

>[1] Oh, hell. *Now* you leave.

>[2] Respond somehow.
>>[A] Just open your mouth and speak. Hope that it gets through comprehensibly.
>>[B] Dammit, you're already doing Richard things. Attempt to seize control of Rudy (or at least his voicebox) and speak that way. If a beetle can do it, so can you, right? [Roll.]
>>[C] You're already communed with him, sort of. Do the thing where you tug him into the interim and speak face-to-face. Upside: he sees your (nice, innocent) face. Downside: he sees your (nice, innocent) face.
>>[D] Write-in.

>[3] (OPTIONAL, FOR [2] ONLY) — What do you tell Rudy? (Write-in. If nobody writes anything in now, you'll have a slate of options for this next update assuming nothing goes horribly wrong.)

>[4] Write-in.

>>5627371
>[B] Dammit, you're already doing Richard things. Attempt to seize control of Rudy (or at least his voicebox) and speak that way. If a beetle can do it, so can you, right? [Roll.]
this is your conscience speaking. talk aloud about everything management doesn't want to get out now. it's the right thing to do.

>>5627371
>[2A] Just open your mouth and speak. Hope that it gets through comprehensibly.
>[3] "Do you want to get out of here?"

>>5627371
>[B] Dammit, you're already doing Richard things. Attempt to seize control of Rudy (or at least his voicebox) and speak that way. If a beetle can do it, so can you, right? [Roll.]

>>5627371
>>[B] Dammit, you're already doing Richard things. Attempt to seize control of Rudy (or at least his voicebox) and speak that way. If a beetle can do it, so can you, right? [Roll.]

>>5627448
>>5628427
>>5628454
>[2B]

>>5627686
>[2A]

lol

I need dice!

>Please roll me 3 1d100s + 10 (+10 Element Of Surprise) vs. DC 75 (+25 Not His First Rodeo) to hijack Rudy!

And...
>[1] Spend 1 ID for +10 to all rolls. You are at 10/14 ID.
>[2] Spend 1 SV to automatically succeed. You are at 2/? SV.
>[3] No spendy.

Rolled 77 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>5628467
>[1] Spend 1 ID for +10 to all rolls. You are at 10/14 ID.

Rolled 83 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>5628467
Spendy

Rolled 45 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>5628467
>3

>>5628470
>>5628480
>>5628533
>97, 103, 65 vs. DC 75 -- Success
>Spendy

Writing. I suspect this will be a longer one, and I'm starting late, so it might end up being a half-update. Apologies in advance.

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>Bodysnatching
>97, 103, 65 vs. DC 75 — Success
>Spendy

What do you say? More importantly, how do you say it? It's true you've managed to produce a body-ish construct, but it begins to fuzz away if you look too hard at it— you're not sctually sure you're capable of speech. At least not comprehensible speech. And even if you could, and Rudy understood it, wouldn't your voice reveal your age and sex? You're trying to exercise caution, for God's sake. (Yes, Richard. Caution.)

Could you disguise your voice? It would be a highly Josey Hatchcock-esque maneuver, but it's something you've rarely attempted, and you have a sinking feeling your pure and honest heart might interfere. It's true that on occasion you do wish your heart lent itself a smidge more to cowardly deceit, like Richard's clearly does— or Gil's, to be frank. Though of course he'd never lie to you, you have noted a certain propensity for... er... well, he was at one point arrested and executed...

Not that you hold it against him! Actually, it's a positive: the sneakier he is, the less your pristine conscience is sullied. You've never done anything wrong in your life! Excepting yesterday, but that wasn't you, really, and he asked for it, so— so, you— (you hope Gil isn't mad at you for that, and for the communion thing, which you didn't even know he'd mind, and now you've left him alone to stew in his disgust, and God, what a—)

—great idea! Wow! You have developed this excellent, wonderful idea, which is Gil-related, except in a positive way! Would you look at that! You've been thinking (of this, and nothing else)... didn't Richard swallow a beetle, and then Gil hijacked his voice? And doesn't Richard hijack your voice all the time? How hard could it be? You're already inside Rudy's head, and you've already stolen his vision, and his voice is not that far away.

Easy, then. You lean out the window, letting your body and the blackness trickle away behind you; you stare into the mirror, survey Rudy's nervy face, find his throat. Then you bite. Not like that, but it's similar— a pounce and a physical give and something running down your lips.

And they are your lips. You own them, they move to your will: you spend a few moments making funny shapes with them in the mirror. The control's not perfect, given that you lack the rest of the face (turns out that's saliva running down), but certainly it's enough to deliver a message. "Ahem," you make him say.

Hmm. Maybe the 'what' was more important than the 'how,' actually, because you're drawing blanks. Are you telling the truth? Attempting a lie? Attempting to lie your way into the truth? Better think fast, because Rudy's face-sans-mouth has contorted. "Ahem," you/he says, to stall for time. "Um, I— mmph!"

(1/2)

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He's clapped his hand over his mouth! How is that fair! You experiment to see if you can bite (actually bite) in retribution, but the flesh of his palm is too far away. Damnit! He was the one who wanted a stupid answer from you, and what do you get? Ignored? Silenced? You hate Rudy, you decide. What a son-of-a-bitch. A cowardly, fickle, self-serving bastard. A pathetic worm, and not the good kind. How dare he oppose you and your best of intentions? Ridicule your honest effort? Spit in your face? You could grind his teeth to powder for this. You could take his spine out. But neither would be so simple and so fitting as—

(You didn't mean you hated him like that.)

—dominating him utterly. The seeds have been planted. You could continue your efforts, twining yourself down his throat and backbone, rooting in his heart, flowering in his airsacs— haven't you destroyed one Rudy already? What's another?

(Wait, you didn't destroy— um, if you did, you didn't mean to, and anyways, that all sounds disgusting. You're not going to—)

You must.

(Why?)

Because it runs in you, does it not, generations of bending and breaking; bending and being broken; rending and being rent; closing and opening; being split and having the pulp like a grapefruit scraped out of you. You have been split and pulped and you will knife open others too and share it with them.

Because you are your father's daughter.

Because you are curious.

(You're not—)
(...)
(...)
(...You're not doing it whatever way you're wanted to do it. No twining, no flowering. Just you and Rudy, single combat. If it can't accept that, it can go stuff itself up its—

—there's nothing there.

>[1] How do you successfully body-snatch Rudy? (Write-in. Optional.)
>[2] Continue.

>>5628783
Uh, copy whatever we did to get control of his mouth?

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>Continued

It's just you and him, then, fair and square— though not even, of course. Never even. Rudy Doheny is loathsome and cravenous, yes, but he is far worse than that: he is ordinary. No magyck. No destiny. Not even a glimmer of gumption, grit, verve, or zip, much less heroism of any kind. He probably doesn't even own a sword. How tragic! Certainly he can sense this deficit; certainly this is why he quails in your radiance. It is envy.

You hold this true in your mind as Rudy digs his fingers around the lip of the sink. Envy! What a pitiable emotion. You have never envied anybody in your life, having no cause to do so, and you wish you could inform Rudy that this whole exercise will be beneficial. That perhaps he'll take away from it a role model (that being yourself) and some important lessons, and that it's all going to a grand, grand cause. That soon his workplace will be exploded, and then he'll have wished he didn't put his dumb hand over his dumb mouth. That it'd be better if he let you in peacefully—

—but wherever you prod him, you face flung-up barriers, road spikes, keep-out signs. And there's something chipping away at your hold on his mouth. Fine! God! You relinquish it, and after a moment turn inward, seeing, feeling, being nothing.

Let him think he's won. You're still the one with the sword.

>[-1 ID: 9/14]

-

Is it right to say you lost your grip on reality? That sounds so cold, so judgmental, so unintentional. Your preference is this: in the dark, reality lost its marble hold on you. In the dark, you were acid-bathed, the unimportant apple-peelered off you, the important multiplied and magnified, your thoughts branching like antlers, until it could be rightly said you were unrecognizable. In this state you (stone and sunlight) crushed down Rudy's hasty walls, you (roses and flame) cremated his spikes and his signs, you (hero) plunged yourself through his heart, you (Herald) pressed yourself into every sorry niche of him, and shone out the other side.

And this was all well and good, except that now you're in Rudy's body, you mean in it— flesh and fuzzy abstraction are incompatible, it appears, and you've been reified straight back into— ow! Damnit! Into Rudy, the dumb bastard, thrashing himself around like a crazy person, throwing himself into walls and things. He's already had a run-in with the mirror, and now there's blood trickling down into his right eye, which— really? Is any of this necessary? Does he think it's going to help? You can feel the quaking knot of him somewhere near you, ready to be sliced to be unraveled to be, um, gently put to sleep, and perhaps locked in some sort of mind-closet. Or his spleen. Something along those lines. You make a few false starts before snatching the knot up— it moves to his, your, your double heartbeat— and for a long moment apprehend what Richard means when he says he could kill you. You could kill Rudy Doheny.

(1/3?)

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You won't. You wouldn't. Even if you had the chance, you wouldn't— but you can't prove it, because it vanishes from you. Just like that.

You are Rudy Donahy.

Oh God! You are Rudy Donahy! Blood is running into your eye! There's a million splinters of mirror embedded into your forehead! Your back and your shoulders ached from where you dumbly banged them into things! You can remember banging yourself into things! When you look around your stupid tiny house, you know it automatically: the cotton ply of the bedsheets, the coffee stain on the laminate, the camera embedded in the ceiling, and the glow-in-the-dark star you've slid over it. Your middle name is Lawrence.

You are dribbling blood on the coffee stain from a long way up. The ceiling is lower than is customary, or you are closer to it than you usually are. Your hair is thin and short and matted to your forehead— your shoulders feel bare. Your hands are large, with thick fingernails. Your chest... is what you are trying not to look at, or contemplate, but it appears as though that effort has failed utterly. You should be lucky you aren't a washboard, said your Aunt Ruby, when you complained of being pricked during dress pinning: what would she say now? You are washboardy.

Thinking about it, your aunt wouldn't say anything, because she would've fainted dead away. Or possibly fainted dead, period. Who could blame her? You have caught yourself in the remaining mirror and now you can't stop gazing back at it, yourself: It's just you, you think, helpfully, at your gaping Rudy-face. Should get something to stop up the blood.

What?

There's tissues on the desk.

It's not Rudy talking. Rudy would be screaming at you, more likely, and anyways he's gone off somewhere. This is something else.

That mirror is going to be a bitch to replace, though. And explain.

Richard says you talk all the time, even when you're dead silent. A bit of a book on tape. Is Rudy a book on tape? But why would he natter on in his own absence? Why are you recalling something from a Richard lecture? (This is horrifying.) Something about possessing dead bodies, and live ones... where dead bodies are like dolls, or mannequins; hollow inside, ready to be filled. Live bodies are the opposite. You can shove their owner in the deepest, darkest mind closet you want, but it's still their body, filled with their clutter and baggage, the interior molded precisely to their shape. You, clumsy, ill-fitting, have to squeeze into the shape of them as best you can, then tolerate being in the shape of them as long as you can. A week at most, you think Richard said. He'd stayed inside you five days. How loudly were you nattering on then?

He's been in your father's body for a lot longer than a week.

(2/3)

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You might have extrapolated some of all this. Maybe most of it. It might, in fact, be a composite of a variety of Richard lectures and off-hand comments and drunken ramblings. (Just how much of this have you internalized?) Even if it is of dubious origin, though, you have little to dispute it. Ramona? Claudia? They were dead, or never alive. You wore them. This? You are not inside Rudy's body. It's like you thought. You are Rudy. There is Rudy stretched over your brain like a film of soap.

>[-2 ID: 7/14]

Your aunt is likely keeling over at this very moment. In the broken mirror, your eyes are unnaturally blue. You are guessing that you should not tell Gil about your recent decision-making process.

Another drip of blood makes its way into your eyeball. You blink it away.

Positive thinking!

Your time is somewhat limited.
>[1] Positive thinking. Positive thinking. Breathe, find tissues and tweezers and a large bandage, and repair your head. Breathe some more. This is not the worst thing that has ever happened. Calm yourself. [Regain ID.]
>[2] Positive thinking. This is... useful. For detectiving. Yes! Is there literally any better method of gathering information? Than possessing the bodies of unsuspecting men and reading their minds? You didn't think so. Search Rudy's memories. (Please specify what kind of memories you are looking for. Certain memories, or too many memories, may cost ID. Write-in.)
>[3] This is useful! Yes. Certainly. Because Rudy knows where all his dumb things are located in his tiny house, and it isn't weird for him to be going through his own stuff, is it? So you can look around innocuously and efficiently. Should you be doing this more often? (Please specify what kind of objects you're looking for. Write-in.)
>[4] Write-in.

>>5629715
>2
uuuuh
how he got hired/the hiring process for people he's hired
any tours of the facilities he's been on
the most confidential info he's ever been exposed to
anything he knows about management
why they work at a place where they know and accept that, if they're lucky, they'll only be killed at the end of their employment
fire alarms/equivalent ways to quickly empty the facilities so pat gets off our case about murdering a bunch of innocents

>>5629715
>>5630242
Smart idea-- support!

>>5630242
>>5630269
Writing.

>Self-reflection

Yes! That's the spirit. There's no reason to dwell on silly things like "your head is bleeding" or "you are inhabiting the body of a certainly unmarried man." Wait. Hmm. Is Rudy unmarried?

...Yes, if the simmering images of a long-lost fiancee are any indication. She was Helen, she had dark dove eyes and a cooing laugh, and having involuntarily thought of her your throat is involuntarily constricting. Damnit! This is not positive in the slightest. Back on track: despite the unmarriedness, etc., surely this is not the worst thing that has happened to you— not even the worst thing in the last 24 hours, not even the worst body you've been plunked into, for God's sake. At least you're up on two legs, aren't you? And you have human skin, and you're not eating anybody. As a matter of fact, you seem perfectly capable of logical thought. How about that?

Furthermore, utilizing said logical thought, you can reason that your decision-making process here was not "reckless" or "worryingly influenceable": as a matter of fact, it was highly intelligent! What exactly did you come here to do? Investigate Headspace? Well, what better method than to directly query the very mind of a senior employee! Open to your complete perusal! You wipe the blood out of your eye with the side of your hand, then go to sit upon your bed. Try not to bleed on it. Hmm. Hmm. If only you had prepared a list of queries beforehand. What do you need to know?

>any tours of the facilities he's been on
Where everything is, probably. Do you—?

Yes. It's not even a query, really. You have been here for years. You have walked Headspace's hallowed hollow halls ten thousand times, short ways and long ways and avoid-the-cameras-really-long-ways all alike. You know the landmarks and you know the dives and you know where they run the black market, even if you scrupulously avoid it (even if you know Management turns a blind eye to it). Where haven't you been, except Under? What elevator haven't you taken, except the chronically stuck one in Biome #4? You know where everything is.

There's no mental map, though: it's not laid out like that. You have a loose store of facts and associations, strung together just as much by emotion and category as it is by spatial relationships. If you closed your eyes and wanted to walk somewhere, you could walk there. If you wanted to know where something specific was, or how far it was from another thing, you could know that. If you wanted everything in a neat, clear diagram to memorize for later? Sorry.

(1/4)

File: rudy (possessed).png (114 KB, 646x395)

114 KB PNG

>fire alarms/equivalent ways to quickly empty the facilities so pat gets off our case about murdering a bunch of innocents
Geez. Fine. You'll be more specific in your probing. If, hypothetically, you were to explode Headspace—

You're not doing that.

Well, you aren't, but you are. Hypothetically. If you were to explode it in a huge ball of righteous justice, this would be great for the world at large, but bad— you're thinking— for the employees of Headspace. Yes? And you have the bad feeling that murdering a thousand-plus innocent people would be a stain on your perfect record. So if there's some sort of warning system you could activate, e.g. a fire alarm, that'd be—

Ha ha.

Memories of accidents: an Inc girl on a quad of spacers, unable to keep her limbs in the right places; a kid walking into a calm room, walking out dopey, tripping and falling and crushed in an autowalk; Leonard splattered on the cobblestone; incinerations and overdoses and disassociations and more than one non-Friend in the Friend Disposal. A fire alarm? What for? What quota would that hit? What deadline would that make? There's never enough time and there's never enough resources and to fill the gaps there are always, always, always new hires. If you believe the crackpots, some of them aren't so new, either.

Even if there was an alarm— where would the evacuation go? Outside? Nobody's suited for there anymore. It'd be like yanking one of those toothy Edge fish to the water's surface; you'd explode. You feel like you would explode. For any evac to work, there'd have to be a route to a large, steady manse, or Headspace merged somehow into that manse. Good luck with that.


>how he got hired/the hiring process for people he's hired
Always, always, always new hires? How is that possible? It's been— (well, it hasn't been all that long in real life, but—)

Desperate people. Low standards. What does anybody look for after death? Answers? Nobody has those. A purpose? A community? You're never seeing your family, friends, fiancée again: Headspace is like family. Headspace is full of new friends. You can marry somebody there, and even receive a HeadCred™ bonus for your trouble, if you consent to letting the relationship be psychometricized and evaluated for productivity impacts. (Memories of weddings.) Nuptial bliss can't interfere with the quotas. (Memories of divorce.)

You don't have to be all that smart to get hired, either. Most would say you don't have to be smart at all. Sure, they run you through those tests now— the psychometrics, the inscrutable scans, the one where you talk about the blobs— but those seem to be filtering out troublemakers, not filtering in quality. Anyone dumb as a rock can work one of the canteens.

It wasn't like this when you came on. You came on early, when it was Casey and hardly any Management, when it was pie-in-the-sky aspirations and gritty technical problems. Reality hit later.

(2/4)

>anything he knows about management
What does anybody know about Management? Oceans of rumor. Tiny rocky outcroppings of fact, or at least well-supported assumption.

Outcropping #1: They aren't real. In the jargon sense, that is, though maybe in the other sense too. They have all the trappings of it: appearing and vanishing, making things appear and vanish, reading through minds at will. Nobody's sure if they came to be this way, or if they began unreal, but it is clear that...

Outcropping #2: They are foreign. You'd never tell it from the generic accents, but the way they speak is clunky and overformal. There are clearly times where they don't know a word, or where they use a word or phrase that means nothing to anybody. Not that anybody informs them of this.

Outcropping #3: They call the shots. Obviously. Casey is a figurehead, though opinion is split evenly if he's a craven sell-out or if he's genuinely deluded.

Outcropping #4: They are capricious, often cruel. A stray glance or remark can displease them, and consequences come severely and suddenly. At other times they're strangely lax. Still, you do not joke or play or mess with Management, even if Management appears to be trying it with you: you agree with them (vocally), flatter them (subtly), and otherwise keep your head down. Anything else is at your peril.


>why they work at a place where they know and accept that, if they're lucky, they'll only be killed at the end of their employment
Who knows this? Who accepts it? Wild theorizers. Scaremongerers. No "end" to the employment has ever been announced, and death— or worse— is hardly a given. What is this garbage doing in your head? And what other choice does anybody have? There's no exit. There's no fire alarm or evacuation route. And Headspace isn't a "workplace": people work, yes, but they eat and play and sleep and socialize just as much or more. They live here. They build routines and habits and coping strategies; they make genuine friendships. Even in work, many roles are genuinely fulfilling. Outside it, there are lunchbreaks and leisure time and intramural events and occasional holidays.

This is people's entire lives. This is your life— and you worked hard to get where you are. You would throw it all away (risking nigh-certain death, or worse) for a tiny possibility of some undefined 'end', and the death you would've already gotten? You're satisfied with what you have.

Besides, if there was an end in sight, you're hopeful that you'd survive the cull. Management likes you.


>the most confidential info he's ever been exposed to
You—
You—

You're bleeding on the damn bed. Goddammit.

Augh! God-damnit!

>[-2 ID: 5/14]

(3/4)

Not the bed. You don't care about the bed, which isn't yours, anyhow— repeat that. It is not your bed. It is not your stupid house, either, and Rudy's life is not your life— repeat that. Not your life, Charlotte. Not yours. God! You were really... you went in deep, didn't you? You weren't doing any logical thought for a long while. Business as usual, says Richard here, har har, but where would you be if you hadn't hit a roadblock? Submerged still, you're guessing. Pinned and gargling while his memory went over you in waves.

Here you are now, though— a lucky fluke? Or your indomitable spirit? Or the query? You prod again for the secrets, the skeletons, the juicy stuff...

They read your mind.

Rudy isn't convinced. You know this because you are him, and there's a distinct niggle in your gut: something is wrong here, is a trap, is a trick. Of course you're correct, and the trap and the trick is you. (This possessing business is awfully complicated.) What can you do about it, though? Order it gone? Niggles don't work that way.

You could disguise yourself further as Rudy, you suppose, to erase the distinction and thus the suspicion. Or you... could not do that.

>[1] Go Rudy mode. Get the confidential information. [Roll. You will lose some amount of ID even on a Success.]
>>[A] Any other sensitive memories you want to retrieve while you're at it? (Write-in. Optional.)
>>[B] Other write-in?

>[2] Don't do that. Do something else.
>>[A] On the topic of Rudy, where the hell did he go? This worries you somewhat. Attempt to investigate his disappearance.
>>[B] Getting subsumed by another person twice in two days would be, frankly speaking, embarrassing. Take some time to regather your strength. [Regain ID.]
>>[C] Investigate Rudy's house. (What sort of things are you on the lookout for? Write-in.)
>>[D] This is getting too dicey. Now you leave. Or, er... attempt to leave. [Roll.]
>>[E] Write-in.

>>5630992
We actually know of a big and stable manse, don't we? But seeing how hard Rudy is coping, getting the employees to actually move there might be very difficult.
>[2A] On the topic of Rudy, where the hell did he go? This worries you somewhat. Attempt to investigate his disappearance.

>>5630992
>2B
Below half ID is officially worryingly low for our current situation.

>>5631007
If you state what big and stable manse you're thinking of, I can have Charlotte recognize this in-character.

>>5631515
It's Us

File: yup.gif (219 KB, 240x215)

219 KB GIF

>>5631527

>>5631531
...this makes me feel a sudden apprehension

>>5631533
No apprehension needed. You picked up what I was putting down.

>>5630992
>2A

Rolled 1 (1d3)

>>5631007
>>5631842
>2A

>>5631510
>2B

Called and writing.

File: us.png (223 KB, 952x744)

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>Self-investigation

...Probably shouldn't. Not that you aren't willing to take daring risks in the pursuit of knowledge, and such, but... er... Gil's gaze has been tending toward the judgmental, and...

Which is not to say that you make decisions on how your inferior looks at you! That would be nonsense. Actually, your head just hurts, and you don't feel like it right now. And you never even wanted Rudy's juicy secrets— they're probably dull and lame, just like he is. Blah blah blah, it's okay that I'm enslaved in mind prison because there's paintball competitions; blah blah blah, I've worked so hard that I get to sleep in a shed with a camera in the ceiling; blah, blah, blah, my evil unreal overlords will definitely not disintegrate me once I stop being useful. Disgusting. When you blow this place up, will he leave then? How many people will stay clinging to the wreckage?

Maybe it'd be better if you forced their hand— do what he said, merge the manses. Not that you know how to do that. Or what manse to do it with. Your manse is yours, not some kind of refugee encampment, and it's not all that big. Similar goes for most of the other ones you've— hmm. The ex-Namway facility. It's huge, it's unoccupied... unoccupied by anybody living, that is, but surely Us would be willing to shelter innocent people? Albeit a whole lot of innocent people, and you did leave on, er, lukewarm terms with them. It'd take some convincing. But still! It's a lead!

You're not lying about the head, which hurts like you banged it at high velocity into a mirror. How about that. Cleaning up the blood wouldn't help the pain much, but it might make you feel better in other ways? Possibly? Where's the—

What took you so long?

No! Never mind! You're going to leave your gaping wound exactly as it is, which serves Rudy right. Wherever he is. Where is he? Did he voluntarily shove himself in a closet? You're hard-pressed to think of other ways a person can up and leave their own head, but... wait a second. Can't you just remember? Is there anything stopping you?

Nope. It's a bit jumbled, but all present: dread into fear into scrabbling panic, yes, and at the tail end something else. Resignation? And a split-second decision to—

His manse. He has a manse. (Of course he has a manse.) Now that you know what you're looking for, it's ridiculously simple to feel out: there is a thing like a marble in the back of your skull. There. Take it in your palm.

You sense yourself deadening before you fall, and have the presence of mind to position yourself in front of the bed.

(1/2).

-

Rudy's manse is startlingly familiar, though it takes you a moment to place it. Beetles. Fire? Ah. It's a carbon-copy of Gil's old jail, minus the run-down house: it's a scrubby hill at nighttime. Not much of a manse, but—

It's a perk to have a personal manse at all. You don't get to customize it much.

For security reasons, you're sure. Well. At least the sky is pretty, you suppose, with a full moon and dense thicket of stars. The Rudy-commentary isn't coming as strongly from you, here, it's just kind of ambient... maybe because you're only semi-Rudy. That's his clothing, yes, but that's your hands you're looking at. And, er, your chest. How convenient that the shirt's been refit— and no pins required.

Atop the hill is full-Rudy. He is dressed in his clothes, too, not yours. (Likely for the best.) He shows no signs of having noticed your presence, and is currently talking into some device. A tiny radio?

Walkie-talkie.

A walkie... geez. Why does Headspace have to make all their names stupid? Fine, he's speaking into a walkie-talkie. You can't catch most of it down here, but you'd have to be crazy to assume he wasn't reporting on you.

Hmm.

>[1] You would define this as Not Good. Draw The Sword, stealth up as best you can, and "politely" interrupt him before somebody scarier interrupts you. [Roll.]
>[2] You can... you can talk this out, right? Yell down at Rudy to drop the talky-hawky and converse with you mano-a-mano. (What do you say to him? Write-in.)
>[3] Whoops. Wake up before he spots you and try to take care of any last business you have. (What do you want to do? Remember more things / look around / regain ID / something else? Write-in.)
>[4] There's no winning scenario here. If you show yourself to Rudy, he knows what you look like— if you wake up and wait around too long, whoever he's talking to might pop in. Time to leave, if you can manage it. [Roll.]
>[4] Write-in

>>5632220
>[4] There's no winning scenario here. If you show yourself to Rudy, he knows what you look like— if you wake up and wait around too long, whoever he's talking to might pop in. Time to leave, if you can manage it. [Roll.]

>>5632220
>4

File: rudy's clothes.png (162 KB, 452x534)

162 KB PNG

Rolled 74, 30, 47 + 10 = 161 (3d100 + 10)

>>5632224
>>5632774
>[4]

Time to bail. I need dice.

>Please roll me 3 1d100s vs. DC 65 (+15 Far Away) to get out of here!

Spend 1 ID for +10 to all rolls? You are at 5/14 ID.
>[1] Y
>[2] N

Also, rolling for something else. The result may affect your roll retroactively. 3d100 + 10 (+20 ???, -5 Distracted, -5 Encased) vs. DC 65 (+15 Long-Distance Call)

Rolled 88 + 15 (1d100 + 15)

>>5633007
Oof, Rudy doesn't know about contrasting colors, does he?

Rolled 62 + 15 (1d100 + 15)

>>5633007
y

Rolled 22 (1d100)

Rolling the final die.

>>5633007
>84, 40, 57 vs. DC 65 - Mitigated Success
A Mitigated Success here grants you a +5 on the main roll.

>>5633011
>>5633019
>>5633062
>92, 67, 27 vs. DC 65 - Success
Nice. See above for the additional +5. Writing.

>>5633011
Men in tech aren't typically known for their fashion sense :^) ...Also, he probably gets his clothes from the Headspace company store...

>GTFO
>92, 67, 27 vs. DC 65 - Success

Again, it's not any lack of nerve stopping you here— you could charge up that hill, chop the walkie-talkie in twain, and take Rudy hostage, and you could do all of it in your sleep. Indeed, you would! Except that you've been saddled with this stupid unwieldy vest, and your head still ambiently hurts, and there are people waiting for you outside.

...And thinking of that, it might be time to go entirely. You wouldn't be fleeing, or even retreating, of course— you're under no danger, and if you were under danger it'd be ludicrously simple to handle. It's a graceful exit, is all it is. A victorious bowing-out. Wouldn't it be crass to overstay your welcome when you've already learned so much?

Trouble is, you're loath to leave the manse— you might not be in danger, but it'd be prudent to keep an eye on Rudy. (And what if somebody comes to the door?) Therefore you need to evacuate from two manses at once, and from one unconscious body into another. Not impossible, surely— positive thinking! But... complicated, and not something you have much expertise in. Normally you'd have Richard assist, but, well—

You crouch upon the grass (it's dark enough where a little rustling won't rat you out) and try to think. Is there any good method to disentangle yourself from Rudy? Does it have to be hands-on? Maybe you can just put your head down and think about being back in his dumb little cave— heh, which was bigger than his shed here. Pathetic. It might be easier if you closed your eyes...

...
...
-

It was dark, and you were still, and you had quite a lot to recover from. These are your formal excuses for falling asleep— briefly! Very briefly. And nothing at all untoward occurred. Really, "falling asleep" is a misnomer: you entered a state of enhanced relaxation, during which you came a hair away from re-joining your own sacked-out body. For isn't unconsciousness and sleep brothers, of sorts? That sounds like a thing Richard would say. You'd like to go with that.

You were close, though, honestly. A minute longer in enhanced relaxation and you would've had it! Instead you're doubled over, fingernails in the dirt, breath sputtering out of you. Something's inside your head. Is this it? Divine punishment? Or just stupid Rudy, striking back at you? The bastard. You knew you hated him, and— ohh. Ohhh, God. Can you just be possessed already? Does there have to be all this—

You sneeze violently, expelling the pain in tandem with, er, something blue. Glowy. Buzzy? Gil! There's no time to form another thought before an erratic clump of beetles reverses course, colliding with your forehead, loosening you. Your head tilts backward. You see the stars.

(1/2)

Then: the bed below you, a stupid vest, a blocky body. You try to bat the bugs off your face before reason kicks in— that's your retainer, you coward!— and you throttle your hands behind your back. Gil is slower to work here, but you're unknotted soon enough. The last thing you feel is a wash of relief. The last thing you see is the stars, glow-in-the-dark.

Then: stars, and a cave, and pins and needles. You groan and rise, which triggers Richard's motion detectors— next thing you know you're being swept up and constricted to death. "Charlie!" He's rocking you side to side as you're trying to free your arms. "You're alright!"

This is not Richard. Richard hugs like a praying mantis. But remember, remember: you have improved him. Installed upgrades. He's happier like this, even if he doesn't know that. "Y— yes? Was I not—"

"The line dropped. Oh, primrose." He withdraws a little and cradles your cheek. "What happened? You scared both of us... ah."

"Um," you say. His expression has shifted.

"Growing up, aren't you? It appears you handled yourself well. I'm proud of you." (You curl your toes in your boots.) "I just wish you would warn us before you run off and do things like that, Charlotte. Even if you're full well capable. Gilbert put himself through a lot of strain for—"

"He was beetles," you mumble. "How was he..."

"It took some finagling, and let's put it like that. Gil?"

A "mnrk" sounds from behind you.

"You should thank him," Richard says in your ear, before spinning you around to see Gil. He's slumped against the wall, eyes half-lidded. "Um..." you attempt. "Are you okay?"

Gil's hand lifts, forming a thumbs-up.

"That's good..." But he didn't do anything! You would've gotten out just fine without him! If they went and set up some stupid elaborate rescue scheme, how is that your fault, exactly? "...You don't look okay..."

He grunts, scootching himself straighter against the wall. "I-i-it isn't anything. I-I just... at least you're not dead, or nuts, or..."

"Not nuts," you say. "I was just detectiving. Did Richard say I was dead?"

"He i-i-implied it... after he jacked into my brain..." Richard raises his eyebrows at your glare. "Detectiving how?"

You wet your lips.

(Choices next.)

>[A1] He's bound to find out eventually. Tell him now, even if he hates you forever (you know, more than he already hates you forever).
>[A2] Tell him?! Did you not see how he reacted last time you told him something?! This is Off Limits, with a capital O and a capital L. Just say you communed with Rudy even more, which is basically true.
>[A3] Give him the half-truth now, but let Richard "secretly" fill him in later. So he's done with the disgust and horror and so on by the time you talk to him next, but he doesn't flip out at you having withheld things. Probably.
>[A4] Write-in.

>[B1] Have a group brainstorm with Gil and Richard about Headspace infiltration strategies. If anybody's going to be involved with the whole scheme, it's going to be them.
>[B2] It's been long enough. Regroup with Madrigal and Earl and Pat. (They haven't been talking about you behind your back, have they? ..Have they?)
>[B3] Write-in.

>>5633169
>A1
it's ok because he already hates us forever

>B2
group brainstorms work better with more than 3 people

>>5633171
>[A2] Tell him?! Did you not see how he reacted last time you told him something?! This is Off Limits, with a capital O and a capital L. Just say you communed with Rudy even more, which is basically true.
We shouldn't hold out on Gil, but he's been very vocal lately.
>[B2] It's been long enough. Regroup with Madrigal and Earl and Pat. (They haven't been talking about you behind your back, have they? ..Have they?)

>>5633171
>[A1] He's bound to find out eventually. Tell him now, even if he hates you forever (you know, more than he already hates you forever).
>[B2] It's been long enough. Regroup with Madrigal and Earl and Pat. (They haven't been talking about you behind your back, have they? ..Have they?)

>>5633313
>>5633382
>[A1]

>>5633377 (checked)
>[A2]

>>5633313
>>5633377
>>5633382
>[B2]

Called for [A1] and [B2] and writing.

File: gil - @cal1us.png (65 KB, 700x878)

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>Well uh you see

You swore to yourself you wouldn't tell Gil anything. This is factual. But he's here now, looking you in the face, and it's just— it's different, okay? He wore himself out on a stupid, pointless rescue mission for you, his second in as many days, and his question sounds so innocuous. Like he cares how you detectivated, and he isn't just undermining your authority and/or casting hateful judgment upon you. Has he gotten the hateful judgment out of his system? No. That's too much to expect. Perhaps he's only improved at concealing it.

You'll take that, though. What other option do you have? Poisoning your sacred bond with doubt? You should be able to trust each other. And if your prior admission already destroyed that and poisoned it and now Gil in his heart of hearts despises you— will admitting one more thing make a difference? Positive thinking. Of course it won't.

Articulating a response is damn difficult, though. "Uhhh," you say. "Well, as you know, I commun...ed with the False Rudy shut up within this cave, which enabled a degree of... um..."

"I-I know that part," Gil says wearily. "Where did you go? We completely lost—"

In the corner of your eye, Richard is nodding at you. You hate him. "...Well, I then, you see, felt the need to pry deeper? So— so we could have maximal information for the explosion plan, and it will go super smoothly. Yes. So I pried deeper into his very mind..." Gil has drawn his legs up to his chest. "...and body..."

"What?" You're trying not to look directly at him. "Aw, shit. What? You don't mean—"

You suck your lips in.

"—you took him over? You're kidding! I-I-Is this some regular thing, too? You go around and—"

"No!" you say heatedly. "It was my first time, okay?! And I didn't go in there meaning to, it just happened, and it was weird, and I— I got a lot of useful information, and I didn't get caught, or hurt, or anything, so you can take your stupid look and shove it. Got it?! And this doesn't mean I'm weird, or—"

"Sorry," Gil mumbles.

"—a bad person, or— I didn't hurt him on purpose, and I didn't steal anything, and he's the one who banged himself into all the walls, and— you're the one with the beetles, and dumb goo body, and you possessed Ellery, and Madrigal, so you can't even say you weren't ever a girl, and—"

"Sorry!" He's risen shakily to his feet. "Lottie, I-I-I didn't mean— I just wanted to know what happened! I-I thought you might've gotten detained, or—"

"I had it under control," you hiss.

"She did," Richard says genially. "There's no way we could've known, though. I think that, given the circumstances, making an assumption was the appropriate thing to—"

(1/3)

File: charlotte & gil - @icarus(...).png (1.53 MB, 1928x2400)

1.53 MB PNG

"I-I can still be sorry about it! I didn't mean to imply..." Gil, sighing, slicks his hair backward. "I-I'm glad you're okay."

You shove your hands into your pockets.

"I-I-I'm glad you're okay. And I-I don't think you're a bad person for jacking some Headspace asshole? He probably deserved it. And I-I-I'd have to be a real dick to think it was weird, when I— when you're completely right, I-I've got zero room to judge, really—"

"You were judging me about the communing."

"I-I-I-I was just surprised! I-I didn't think it was something a regular person could... but you're special. I should've expected it, plus clearly there's a lot of things i-i-in this world I have no goddamn idea about, so..." He laces his fingers. "Yeah."

>[+1 ID: 6/14]

"Ah," you articulate. "I'm special?"

Gil looks instantly sheepish. "Um... I-I-I've never met anybody like you before, so... by definition..."

Do not ask if it's in a good or bad way. "In a good or bad way?"

"In all the ways." His answer came a little too fast. He's jittering his ankle. "You're the... you're the most person I-I-I-I-I've ever met."

"Ah." Richard is smiling just out of sight, you're certain. Sharkishly? "So where'd Fake Rudy go? Um, I mean False Rudy."

"Oh. Uh..." Gil tilts his head, and you turn to follow his gaze. There's a large silver puddle on the floor. "Well..."

"It's possible he may return in, eh, one to four days," Richard says. "Or he may not. It remains to be seen."

It sure does. "Great."

The cave is humid. Nobody else speaks. "We better get back," you say.

"Yes. Best not to raise questions about... this." Richard glances at the puddle. "Would you like to lead the way, Lottie?"

Of course you would, though you have to wait for Richard to lock the door behind the three of you. ("To avoid complications.") The tunnel cools as you move further from the blockage at the end, and heats back up again as you 180 into Earl's tunnel. A shaggy-haired man— a Hellsbells resident, you guess— waits for you to shuffle past him. The note on Earl's door reads "Exercising the bug at the garden — come in and sit down — or come meet us ———> this way"

Not written by Earl, you're guessing. Maybe Pat? Possibly Madrigal? Regardless, you shouldn't let the three of them socialize on their own too much, or they might begin to get ideas. Gil shrugs when you show him the note. "You're leading the way," Richard says.

(2/3?)

File: the garden.jpg (249 KB, 1024x576)

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So you meander ———> this way, past a handful of extra doors and around a wide bend in the tunnel, and emerge into a high-ceilinged natural cavern. Light pours in from a single crevice far above, while steam burbles into it from a crack below. Around the crack is life: sea anenomes, skinny tubeworms, crusty algae, a cloud of pin-sized shrimp. Pat, still in her "Nettie" disguise, reclines against a stalagmite— doesn't she know of the dangers? (Perhaps goo isn't consumed so easily?) Madrigal's laying on the ground, dangling a severed worm above Buster's mouth(?). Earl, hands on hips, supervises.

"About time," Pat says eventually, after you've cleared your throat. "How'd it go?"

You open your mouth, but close it when Gil presses against you. "Guy was a difficult customer, tell you what. We got some good stuff, though. Ha-ha."

"What'd you do, dope him up?" Madrigal's lowering the worm bit by bit. "Or beat the shit outta him?"

Sort of? No? "Trade secret," Gil parries, and attempts a smile-like expression. You nod solemnly.

"Well, I'm happy to hear you got something! He is a tough customer, that Rudy. Might be a little cheerier on a little something-something, huh?" Earl chuckles, even if nobody else does. "Glad you found us! Thought we'd make for a little change of scenery— see, this town isn't all gloomy, huh? Hey, Frances? I mean, Lottie?"

It's more of a hamlet than a town, but you don't have the heart to tell him that. "...Yes?"

"Can we talk for a second? Nothing bad, promise!"

You have trouble thinking of any possibility that isn't bad, but you feel pressured to take his word for it. "I guess?"

He leads you aside, lowering his voice. "So, I wasn't planning to bring this up, since I didn't think you folks were staying for another night. You are though, which is no problem at all— happy to host you— it's just that I'm booked for a job tonight."

"A job?" The heist. "Oh."

"Which, again, no trouble. You all can bunker down, and I'll cool off before I come back in. Got no desire to scare the shit out of anybody. It's just..." He scratches his chin. "Well, there's no pressure, kid, but it'd be nice to have somebody along who's in my corner. The typical crowd doesn't look too kind on somebody who doesn't have all his faculties, you dig me? Get a lot of..."

He grimaces, exposing his false teeth. "I can remember more than they think I do, you know? It's no big deal, really, but you were so good on the last job—"

Richard's the one who actually plotted the previous heist, but it doesn't seem wise to correct him. "Um, are you allowed to bring an extra person?"

"I'm a hard guy to argue with." More teeth. "It's not too rare I have a handler— Morris is real good at it. I'll get you a cut of the take, too, so no worries there."

You're not in pressing need of money. On the other hand, you're broke again. "And what is this job... for?"

(3/4)

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"Not too sure!" He clicks his tongue. "Never am til afterwards, to be honest, and usually I don't want to know. All I know is that 'licia gave me the lead— you remember her? Felicia?"

Um... dimly. Fish. Superstitious. Kind of a bitch— she's the one who accused you of selling out the whole crew to the Wind Court, you think. You'd be pleased to never see her again. "...Yeah?"

"Well, she's gotten into... something. Shit's a bit weird. Not sure I can trust her to look out for me, you know? Uh, besides that, she'll have to give you the details." Earl rubs his hands together. "So are you in?"

>[A1] Um, okay. Sure. Earl's been real nice to you, and you could use the extra chit. It's only for an evening. Plus, isn't rescuing him from the insults of jerkish criminals sort of heroic?
>[A2] Sure, but insist on bringing Gil with you. He's your partner-in-crime, basically, emphasis on the crime? And he has a gun? He's good at the heist stuff, you promise. [Roll.]
>[A3] Decline as politely as you can manage. The first heist was before you had an image to maintain, you know? You can't be going and seeking out midnight trouble for no good reason.
>[A4] Write-in.

>[B1] *Now* you brainstorm. Lay out what you learned from Rudy (minus how you learned it) and see what everybody thinks. Maybe you can hammer out the beginnings of a plan?
>[B2] You don't want to draw too many questions— plus you're not sure how leaky Earl's lips are. Pat and Madrigal are coming back with you, so there's time later. Just hang around. [Timeskip until the heist or until the next morning, depending on which [A] wins.]
>[B3] Write-in.

[As a side note, unless something really crazy happens, you'll regain ID between now and the heist (should you opt into it). You'll have multiple hours to unwind beforehand.]

>>5633622
>[A2] Sure, but insist on bringing Gil with you. He's your partner-in-crime, basically, emphasis on the crime? And he has a gun? He's good at the heist stuff, you promise. [Roll.]
>>[B1] *Now* you brainstorm. Lay out what you learned from Rudy (minus how you learned it) and see what everybody thinks. Maybe you can hammer out the beginnings of a plan?

>>5633622
>[A1] Um, okay. Sure. Earl's been real nice to you, and you could use the extra chit. It's only for an evening. Plus, isn't rescuing him from the insults of jerkish criminals sort of heroic?
>[B1] *Now* you brainstorm. Lay out what you learned from Rudy (minus how you learned it) and see what everybody thinks. Maybe you can hammer out the beginnings of a plan?

>>5633622
>A1
>B1

>>5633836
>>5634069
>[A1]

>>5633705
>[A2]

>>5633705
>>5633836
>>5634069
>[B1]

Called for [A1] and [B1] and writing. You'll leave Gil behind to his probable relief, but Richard will still tag along, being invisible and in your head and all that.

As a side note, I might be taking a short break in the latter half of the week. All I know for certain at the moment is that I can't update Thursday, but tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday are also going to be somewhat uncertain. I will return to regular updates this Sunday at the latest.

>You're in

Is this whole thing a bit shady and nefarious? Sure. Didn't Gil chastise you for running off and getting in trouble all the time? Sort of. As you've established, though, he's not your boss, and this is hardly trouble. You'd be doing Earl a favor! It'd be horribly wrong not to accept— isn't that right, Richard?

"Hmm?" Richard is observing the tubeworms. "It'd be well within your remit to decline, but I think your commitment to aiding a friend is admirable."

A... a what? Earl isn't... you barely know him! And he's all weird and nice to everybody, betraying a horrendous lack of judgment! He has nothing to do with this. You are merely selecting the heroic option, which is to help the person in need, especially when said person is offering you a substantial cut of the profit.

Earl is beginning to look concerned. You straighten up. "Er, yes! I am in."

"How about that!" He grabs your limp hand and nearly pumps it out of its socket. "You're a real pal! No need to worry about another thing— I'll get us up and out when it's time. So, hey, how'd—"

"Lottie?" Gil calls. "Are you i-i-in the middle of something? Because I think we, um, need—"

Earl lifts his hands in a 'go on' gesture, and you hasten back over. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Madrigal says. "Bugman's just telling us you're the one Rudy spilled his shit to. Now you've got to spill it to us. You listening, Earl?"

He's returning to his post. "Sure am."

"'Kay then." She raises her eyebrows.

Everybody's looking at you. God-blessed. It's true you learned a lot of things, but are you really supposed to share them? With these people? None of them like you. Well, Richard does, now. Gil might or might not. Earl doesn't count. But Madrigal condescends to you, and you haven't exactly cleared things up with Pat, so... plus, it's weird. When does anybody want to listen to you speak? Um, not that they shouldn't want to— of course they should, but—

"They're all on your side, Charlie. Is that so incomprehensible?" Richard's hands are stuck in his back pockets. "You're uncovered something of genuine relevance. Perhaps existential relevance."

Existential relevance? If he says so. You fidget. "Uh... give me a second to remember everything..."

Deep breath. What did you learn?

>The meeting
First things first. Headspace is planning to launch some kind of new product soon. Some people seems to think it needs more... cuesee?

"Quality checking," Pat says.

"They do quality checking?" Gil says. Earl chortles.

Madrigal waves a dismissive hand. "We knew all this shit already, or I did. That's why What's-his-face wanted my signoff, and the tour? So they could market this shit in camp? It's some kind of upgrade to the old one, the button—"

(1/6?)

"You mean the E.Z.-M.A.N.S.E.," Pat says. "The soul-sucker. The time-bomb. Insta-locitis, just add stupid."

People look down. "You remember locitis?" you say.

"No, but I believe Ellery's account of it." She rolls her shoulders. "If nobody else is going to say it, I will: there's no possibility of a new version being anything other than a death trap, unless it's worse. Did he say when it was due to release?"

"...No. Well... he implied it was soon-ish. A few weeks out, or maybe a couple months, but not much longer? I think?"

"So a couple days. Maybe a week, tops."

"Gods-damn," Earl says. "That much of a spanner? Really?"

Madrigal criss-crosses her legs around a small container— Matches? "How long until they come to collect the snake?"

"Thanks for the reminder. ...Four days yesterday." Pat grips her arm. "Three as of today, or two. They didn't say r—time or s-time."

"Three or two? And a couple days 'til launch. That's fucking interesting."

"We're not executing a bombing plan i-i-i-in a couple days?" Gil manages: Buster is attempting to climb onto his leg. "Right? That's not... feasible..."

"I mean, there's not going to be a fucking snake, so that'll jack up some plans. Maybe they'll delay." Madrigal cracks her neck. "Don't get me wrong, though, this is not my plan. I'm not setting foot in this dump. You do it when you want."

You have somewhere between two days and a week to launch your offensive, then. The sooner, the better.

>The cafeteria
You tell them next about the food at Headspace. Nobody seems surprised. "Always knew they were pieces of work," Earl says. "That's fucked," Madrigal says, and remarks on the meal plan Pat must offer.

"Ha-ha. Nobody needed a meal plan, because I'm not a sadist."

"Could've fucking fooled me."

They exchange glances. Earl looks on obliviously. "Seriously, though," Pat says irritably, "there's no good reason to induce hunger. You don't think they'd all be more efficient without constant breaks to eat? It's a damn control tactic, and I guarantee it's Management's idea. They're freaks about control."

Not surprising. You tell them that Cuesee... uh, QC... is allegedly getting 'downsized.'

"So they're dead," Pat says. "That's a bummer. What?" (She's getting looks again.) "You think anybody gets fired from there? You think they'd waste resources memory-wiping dozens of random people? They're being disposed of, even if they're not dead at the moment."

"Kidnapped?" says Madrigal pointedly. Matches flicks its tail in its tank. "Tortured? Experimented on?"

"I-I-I don't think they'd just go to waste," Gil says. (He has given up the Buster war: it's presently clinging to his chest.) "The people, I-I mean. You could extract things from them— i-i-information, or memories, or blood, or you could render them down into crystal, probably... lots of things..."

(2/6?).

Like Law, probably, though you can't rule out experiments. It's nothing good. You tell them about the allegations of insurrection, and about the flyer under the door, now that you think about it.

Earl's face lights up. "So there's some friendly faces in there! Freedom fighters! Sheesh, you all were scaring the shit out of me. Seems like we better get in touch with them, huh?"

"They're all stuck in there," Pat says. "That's the whole point of it. There's no contacting—"

>Hiring
Not unless you get somebody on the inside. You tell them about the hiring process.

"That's what I told you." Pat is unimpressed. "Thing's like a sieve. Most of that 'testing' is theater, I guarantee it."

"So we could get in there?" you clarify.

"I mean, not if they already know your face. They're not stupid. I'd be shocked if they weren't keeping tabs on you already. You too, Maddie— think that tour was at random?"

Madrigal slouches. "Like they don't know you, too."

"Depends on the face." Pat is insouciant. "Even then, I'm not risking anything. BK, you might skate by— I don't know how much they care about Spelunker's."

"Thanks, but I can't go in quiet. Incapable of it! I'd blow my cover before the ink was dry."

There's a pause. Gil blanches. "What?!"

"...You could be rigged up with a disguise real easy, with the new body," Pat says. "If you even need it. Does Headspace have eyes on you?"

"I-I-I-I don't know?!"

"He is a jacker," Earl mutters.

"Even so," you say, "you did go off the radar for almost a year... then you moved across the country... Also, um, there's multiple of you, so we wouldn't have to risk the whole— oh."

Gil is beginning to look vaguely betrayed. You change the subject—

>Navigation
—telling everybody that you weren't able to find a map. Sorry, Madrigal. Why doesn't she go find a map, if it's so easy?

"I didn't say it was fucking easy," Madrigal says. "I just thought you needed more than one insane idea to blow up a whole dream thingy, huh? And I guess you've gone and got a shit-load of info... somehow... so whatever. It's in your hands."

"Not sure you'd need a map, would you?" Earl rubs his chin. "Isn't it a manse? Probably got three layers, probably got the scary shit at the bottom, just like all of them. Betcha a sack of chit that's where the bomb needs to go."

"I-i-it'd make sense," Gil concurs. "Easier to have impossible infrastructure down deep... otherwise you'd have to build all the shitty prison cells yourself, right? I-instead of just thinking them."

"It's not like they ever let me in the sensitive areas," Pat says. "It's as logical as not, I guess."

You remember something. "He mentioned 'Under.' He'd never gone Under."

"Well, there you go, then! Sounds deep to me!" Buster remains on Gil's chest, but Earl has sidled over to scritch it. "You want to bet that's where all the poor fired fuckers go? Or anybody who's pissed off—"

(3/6?)

>Management
You tell them about inscrutable, unpredictable, foreign-seeming Management.

"Sounds right," Pat says. "Wouldn't say 'foreign,' necessarily. I told Madrigal this, but I really don't think they're human."

You tell her that they sure look human.

"Doesn't everything?" She spreads her legs. "I will say this. They're weak to flattery. Not obvious flattery, maybe, but if you can imply you feel lesser-than, or dumb in comparison to them... they love that shit. Not enough to save you, but maybe enough to get one of them off your back."

Ew. Like Richard. "Are they actually that much smarter?"

Pat exhales hard. "Hah. You know... I don't think so. They don't behave like geniuses. I think they just know way, way more."

>Evacuations
You tell everybody that, as a kind and sensitive individual, you have inquired about a method in which to avoid murdering innocent Headspace employees. Perhaps you could funnel them all into a different manse? Perhaps by smashing the different manse into the Headspace manse, so they're stuck together after? If such a thing is possible.

"Charlotte Fawkins," scoffs Madrigal. Matches winds around her finger. "Caring about other people. You really did get hit on the head."

You coil up at such an unjust accusation. "Excuse me? I have always expressed an overflowing— an unlimited amount of caring, for others, and it's not my problem if you've been too blind to notice. In case you weren't aware, I investigated your dumb boyfriend for no compensation—"

"A Game Night invite."

"—for no compensation, and Game Night hasn't even happened, then I graciously let you come to talk to him, then I rescued you after you got kidna—"

"We get the picture, champ," Pat says. "Wish you would've extended the same kindness to my people, but that's fine. What manse are you planning to smash, and who the hell does it belong to? Because—"

"Nobody," you say uncomfortably. (No way you can tell her it used to be Namway's.) "Super empty."

"Uh-huh. And you plan to smash it how?"

"...I was hoping you all might have ideas."

"I don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about," says Madrigal, and sits back. "Not really my bag," Earl apologizes. Gil swallows. Richard smiles secretly. Buster waves its long antennae.

"Sure," Pat says. "I guess I'll have to say something. Firstly, this idea is— excuse me— batshit. Nobody does this. Nobody has any reason to do this."

"I'll be the first!" you say brightly. "Unless it's, um, literally impossible, but—"

"It's unreality. I'm sure it's possible. Might not like my guess at how you'd do it, though. You remember trances?"

"Whole point is you don't remember," Earl says. "But don't go recommending risky stuff to her, Nettie, she's just a—"

(4/6?)

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"She's a grown woman," Pat says, "who has caused a lot of damage to other people. She can do what she asked to do. To move a manse, you have to understand— they aren't real, and the space they contain is not physical. This can be easily proven by trying to walk out of a manse. Have you ever attempted it?"

You shake your head.

"Good, because it's worse than useless. Every manse is infinite in all directions. If there's a wall, it continues behind it. Walk far enough and things begin to lose form. Eventually it's whitespace. But it's still the same manse, you understand? Beyond that— if things inside of a manse appear to have a spatial relationship, where one thing always remains next to another thing, you're getting hoodwinked. They're not together because they're next to one another; they're together because they are associated with one another. It is powered by symbolism. It is effectively highly stabilized dream logic."

"I knew it," Madrigal says.

The appropriate thing to do when being lectured about metaphysics is to nod and get it over with. "So?"

"So, I can pick up this rock. And I can throw this rock." Pat does, scattering the cloud of shrimp with it. "I can't pick up or throw a manse. It does not exist on a level where 'pick up' or 'throw' mean anything. I definitely can't smash one manse into another."

"Can you just get to the part where I actually can?" you say.

"You're insufferable. Okay. The gist is, if you want to be able to pick up or throw or smash a manse, it can't be physical— you have to smash it symbolically. This sucks ass, excuse me, because you are a real living person and you function on the level of flesh and rocks, not pure abstraction. To get to pure abstraction, you have to put yourself in a trance—"

"Or take the right stuff," Earl says cheerily.

"Imagine. Some people want to do this to themselves. Put yourself into a trance, hand over your free will, hope whatever replaces you gets the job done, hope it lets you back out of it. You'd be surprised at how many people never come back, or maybe you wouldn't." Pat inspects her clean fingernails. "For you, I think it'd have to be a deep one— catatonic, essentially. I think you would have to assume the symbolic role of the actual manse itself. Then you could, probably, smash yourself into whatever you liked. Symbolically."

"Ahhh," you say, and think about it. "That doesn't seem so bad."

"Doesn't it?" Pat's lips turn up.

You just have to commune with the manse itself, blah blah blah. You probably would've done that anyhow, just because.

(5/6)

Still, you can't say Pat's rambling didn't serve a purpose. "So you're saying it's totally normal to go all... er... symbolic? Like you're sort of being, ah, broken up, and the bits you're being broken up into don't make any sense?"

"I mean, it depends on your line of work," Pat says. "In a manse— yeah. That's about right."

Earl nods. Even Gil nods.

Phew!

>[+1 ID: 7/14]

>Personal manses
On the subject of manse, you relay that higher-ranking employees appear to have access to manses of their own. They're dinky and from templates, though.

"Kid, you've got to stop making me feel bad for those people." Earl rubs his forehead. "That's pathetic. They're stuck with the templates?"

"Not even complete templates," Pat says. "That sounds like an unfurnished one. That's... I don't know what I expected, to be honest."

"I-I-It's better than no l— manses," Gil offers. "For us, at least... means you wouldn't get caught out automatically, Lottie, i-if they saw you had one. Could be transport, too."

"To get in, you mean?" you say.

"Or to get around Headspace, but i-i-in, too, I guess... if you put someone there and they had a manse you could easily... oh, come on. Really?"

It doesn't have to be him. Necessarily. But you are thinking.

>[1] ...It doesn't *have* to be Gil, but he is a clear contender. There can be multiple of him, so you can ship Headspace Gil off and keep him around in the meantime. He has a knowledge of manses, so he won't be stuck serving mush. He's reasonably sneaky and good at lying, er, when he has the heart for it. He has an easily accessed manse. He has an easily disguised goo body. You trust him. ...You just have to beg him really really hard to trust you, too.

>[2] You're not shipping Gil off to *Headspace.* End of. You need an alternative.
>>[A] Beg Pat to do it. She really, really doesn't want to. But she can disguise herself, she knows her way around, and you can possibly convince her that Management will kill her if she doesn't. A win? [Difficult roll.]
>>[B] Beg Pat to make a gooplicate of somebody, then make the gooplicate do it. They can get really realistic, can't they? When they're not being murdery? And if they do get murdery, what's the loss? (A gooplicate of who? Write-in.)
>>[C] Just track down some other replica of a Headspace employee (there's got to be loads around here), commune with them, and work out a way to drill a permanent path to Headspace into their skull. You're not consigning anybody to weeks or months of employment, that way, but you're likely to raise Headspace's alert level if you go ahead with it.
>>[3] Write-in

>>5634666
>the country
Should be the seafloor, clearly, but I don't want to delete 3 posts. Damn you, Satan.

>>5634669
>[3] Write-in
I wonder if we can recruit someone from Anthea's gang of spelunkers. Maybe even Anthea herself. She's smart and she seems like she can be motivated by saving innocents and preventing a second locitis.

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>>5634691
(This could work, though keep in mind that you're basically asking someone to be employed by Headspace [for all that entails] for anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months straight -- it's a big ask. You'd have to explain the entire situation to be convincing, but then you have to consider how many people know about this, if you trust them, and if you can rely on things not leaking.)

(Anthea herself can't do it, since her face is extremely conspicuous and she's one of the assassination crew members with Ellery and Pat. Even if Headspace doesn't have it tied to her directly, the risk is too big.)

(Feel free to keep your vote if you're okay with all of the above, but I felt like it deserved full credence.)

>>5634669
>2
Gooplicate of herself? She said she could make it look different.

>>5634669
>[2] You're not shipping Gil off to *Headspace.* End of. You need an alternative.
Backing >>5634691
>[3] Try to convince someone from Anthea's crew to go into headspace for us. They're the professionals, after all.

>>5634700
Sansthea Undertale

>>5634669
Actually, if Anthea can't do it, I wouldn't trust anyone else of her crew. Let's try another thing:
>[3] Ask Richard to teach us to change our appearance so that we can do it personally.

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>>5634945
This could probably work, though it'd need a roll from Pat (she doesn't have any gooplicates of herself for a reason). It'd be easier than asking her to do it herself, though.

>>5635048
Getting yourself hired is... dicey, since you're a terrible liar, and you'd be pretty much relinquishing the plan to somebody else. (You wouldn't have contact with the outside while in there.) Also, Richard doesn't dabble very much in appearance changes-- if that was reliably in his skillset, he wouldn't have let himself get stuck looking like your father. He can make you scary and reptilian, but that's probably not what you're looking for.

On a pragmatic level, there would be some pretty serious time-skipping if we did this. We're not spending 10 threads on Wagie Simulator.

If you'd like an alternative to your alternative, Pat would likely agree to making a gooplicate of you, which you could then send in. It's not clear if said gooplicate would be any better of a liar than you are, but it probably wouldn't be any worse.

As a third option, you could try to semi-permanently hijack a different employee, similar to what you did with Rudy but longer-term. This would make lying and intel-gathering painless, though it'd be trickier to smuggle anybody else in with you, you'd have a lot less time to hang around (~8 days, vs. weeks or months), and you're in constant danger of losing the plot and 'becoming' whoever you're possessing. Rudy never saw you or caught you, though, so this is a lot less risky then it could be. It'd also probably involve some time-skipping, though less drastic.

>>5635044
here's a full-face one if you're gonna be PICKY

Okay. I spent way too long writing the update yesterday, and it was double-length, so I'm going to take today and tomorrow off at a minimum. Update Friday at the soonest, Sunday at the latest.

Also, I'm not closing the vote yet. This is pretty important, because we're currently 3-way tied between 3 write-in options, making me even less comfortable flipping between them. For the sake of clarity and full understanding, then, I'm going to do a revote with some altered options and a brief pros and cons list. To avoid another split, we'll be doing basic ranked choice.


>>5634945
>>5635044
>>5635048
>tl;dr PLEASE REVOTE. PUT YOUR TOP 3 OPTIONS IN ORDER OF PREFERENCE.

>[1] Get (a part of) Gil to infiltrate Headspace and gather intel.
Pros: He is basically the optimal person to be doing this. You'll get as close as you can to ensuring success.
Cons: He's not exactly jumping at the bit to do it. You don't really want to subject your retainer to *Headspace*, whether it's all of him or not.

>[2] Get somebody from Spelunkers' Associated who *isn't* Ellery, Anthea, Pat, or Earl to do it.
Pros: You don't really care about their safety. They're probably good at manse stuff. Might be sneaky. Possibly trustworthy.
Cons: You don't know them. Even if you rely on Anthea to pick, you don't know if she's a good judge of character or talent. You'd have to tell them the entire debacle with Headspace, which is all very sensitive info.

>[3] Get Pat to make a gooplicate of herself, then make gooplicate!Pat do it. [Roll.]
Pros: She's used to lying and pretending to be another person. She knows a lot about Headspace and manses. You trust her not to snitch. A gooplicate will have goo-related abilities.
Cons: She thinks that it's pretty weird to make a gooplicate of yourself. Headspace knows her, and she's directly involved with Ellery. Even if you disguise the gooplicate, you don't know if Headspace has a way of identifying them.

>[4] Get Pat to make a gooplicate of *you,* then make gooplicate!Charlotte do it.
Pros: You are extremely intelligent, competent, and attractive. You're good at ferreting out information. You trust yourself not to snitch. A gooplicate will have goo-related abilities.
Cons: You are a poor liar. You have an extremely distinctive pattern of speech and behavior. Headspace knows you. Even if you disguise the gooplicate, you don't know if Headspace has a way of identifying them.

>[5] Find another fake version of a Headspace employee, sedate them so they don't cause trouble, and possess them for about a week.
Pros: It's a ready-made excuse and seamless disguise. You'd have access to the employee's knowledge. You can bail out if you have to... in theory. Richard knows a lot about doing this.
Cons: The word may have spread about Rudy. You don't know if Management can tell if somebody's possessed. Your time is limited. It'd be hard to physically smuggle somebody else in. You may have problems hanging onto your real identity.

>>5635375
>5
>3
>1

>>5635375
>[2] Get somebody from Spelunkers' Associated who *isn't* Ellery, Anthea, Pat, or Earl to do it.
We've alreayd forced Gil to do too much, Pat is too well-known by Headspace, Charlotte isn't a good enough liar to pull it off, and gooplicating somebody from Headspace just sounds like a worse version of using a Spelunker, with all the problems of gooplicating Pat.

>>5635379
>gooplicating somebody from Headspace just sounds like a worse version of using a Spelunker, with all the problems of gooplicating Pat.
To be clear, [5] is not gooplicating anybody. [5] is you finding some poor guy and possessing him (or her) in the same way as you possessed Rudy, except 1) you make sure they can't escape and call for help and 2) you stay in the body for as long as you can.

Also, please list your second and third choices, unless you literally hate all of the other four equally.

>>5635375
>[5] Find another fake version of a Headspace employee, sedate them so they don't cause trouble, and possess them for about a week.
>[1] Get (a part of) Gil to infiltrate Headspace and gather intel.
>[3] Get Pat to make a gooplicate of herself, then make gooplicate!Pat do it. [Roll.]

Hey everybody. No update today either, as mentioned in >>5635375. (Re)vote remains open, so please get your input in if you haven't already.

To fill the lull, I have some optional meta questions for you all. Answer as many as you're feeling up to.

>>5635377
>>5635379
>>5635478

>It's been a while since the controversial Thread 30 (you know, the one where your worm exploded). How are you feeling about the way things have progressed since then? Are you satisfied with the direction the quest is going in? inb4 Crown: things will be happening on this front in very short order

>The ultimate Ellery reveal was a long time coming. Did the way it resolve make sense to you? Were you happy with it?

>How do you feel about real planning/preparations being required for tackling Headspace? I'd like to distinguish it from your regular "just break in and smash things" shenanigans, but I don't want to bog the threads down in minutiae.

>Over the course of 20+ threads, Gil has gone from "randomly selected manse obstacle" to a full-blown deuteragonist. How do you feel about him? How do you feel about his relationship with Charlotte?

>Is there anything else you think I should know, generally speaking?

>How's your week been? For my fellow zoomers, how is finals season going for you?

>>5635375
>3
>5
>2

>>5635924
in order:

satisfied as long as the spoiler is not a lie
otherwise still satisfied but slightly less so

yes

cautiously optimistic, I also don't want to get bogged down in minutiae. good luck avoiding that!

Gil is like a crustless loaf of bread, and we are his plastic tupperware. That's how I feel about him and our relationship. No further comment.

no

My weeks been pretty typical. Also wow OP is a zoomer? Dropped, saged, reported.

>>5635924

I feel like the worm was kind of a consequence of a bunch of shit lumped together, half Charlotte's fault half poorly made decision's fault, but the thread isn't that fresh in my mind atm.

>getting involved in the minutae of planning
That'll definitely happen, but one wrong move or one weird write in can make all that become touch-and-go in a snap.

>Gil
Second-favorite male character next to Richard. Once Charlotte acquires the crown, she shall remold him into the ultimate, flesh-having man specimen-- for his benefit, of course! And for totally chaste reasons!

>week and finals
Bought some watercolors to try out, so I've been playing around with those in the bouts of free time I got!
Not quite at finals week yet, but school is school. Hoping those trusty curves will kick in where I need them.

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I'm back! Update coming up.

>>5635377 (+3)
>>5635478 (+3)
>>5635935 (+2)
>[5] - 8 points

>>5635377 (+2)
>>5635935 (+3)
>>5635377 (+2)
>[3] - 7 points

>>5635379 (+3)
>>5635935 (+1)
>[2] - 4 points

>>5635377 (+1)
>>5635478 (+2)
>[1] - 3 points


[5] takes it. Writing.


>>5635935
>That's how I feel about him and our relationship.
This is also how Charlotte feels about him and their relationship.

>spoilers
mfw

>>5635946
>first spoiler
What do you mean, "for totally chaste reasons"? Of course they'd be for chaste reasons?! She's a well-bred young lady, not some kind of degenerate whore!

>second spoiler
based watercolors

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>>5636901
>>5635935
In regards to the Gil-being-crustless thing, I feel like he could certainly grow into his character in some newfound ways now that he's not as-tethered to Charlotte. We haven't had enough threads where he isn't bound to Charlotte-- perhaps we'll see him leverage his blessing in some newfound way with his goo-body.

Hypothetically-speaking though, how powerful could Gil become if he were to properly leverage/understand his blessing?

>spoiler
I guess keeping this dubiously-acquired Gil lewd is a moot point then, since Charlotte is too pure and well-bred to engage in such debauchery!

>>5636905
>I feel like he could certainly grow into his character in some newfound ways now that he's not as-tethered to Charlotte
Straightforwardly, I think that what you're talking about has already been happening for some time. Gil has been beginning to work on his own projects (tearing down/rebuilding his manse; splitting off to tinker on the upgraded siphon), make his own friends (Horse Face, Teddy), go off on his own escapades (Headspace, like 2/3rds of Thread 30), and... well... stand up to Charlotte, much to her displeasure, to the point where >>5633377 notes it. It's not a fast process-- the guy is still sorting out his serious psychological trauma on top of garden-variety self-loathing-- but he's working on it.

If this stuff has been passing you by, it might be wise to distance yourself somewhat from Charlotte's EXTREMELY unreliable narration-- she kind of has a vested interest in seeing/representing Gil as her passive subordinate, since that's a whole lot easier to mentally process than him being a normal friend.

>We haven't had enough threads where he isn't bound to Charlotte
Well, he has been literally trapped in her head for dozens of threads... he also isn't the MC, and is never going to have equal amounts of POV time with Charlotte. Because of this, he *has* to be joined to her hip to get any substantial amount of screentime. If he completely goes off and does his own thing without her, this is tantamount to him vanishing from the current story for RL weeks or months, which in turn sort of defeats the purpose of being a deuteragonist. It's a little like saying "we haven't had enough threads where Richard isn't bound to Charlotte."

If what you're trying to say is "there should be more threads with Gil POV," that's cool. Or if you do actually want him to vanish for a while, that's cool too, I guess. But you gotta clarify here.

>Hypothetically-speaking though, how powerful could Gil become if he were to properly leverage/understand his blessing?
Not to burst your bubble, but not very. The blessing is good at what it does (aiding/reverting/helping people through change or "transformation"), but it's not some pool of unlimited wizard power or anything. At maximum I think he could use it in some clever ways.

>we'll see him leverage his blessing in some newfound way with his goo-body
This is plausible, though, considering the nature of what goo is.

>spoilers
UHM, ACTUALLY, I will have you know that "hand holding" is NOT untoward in situations such as navigating through thick crowds or fleeing from imminent danger, which this image is CERTAINLY taken from! Now begone, you craven reputation-smearer!

>Self-possessed

You were thinking, at least. Then you saw Gil's face and stopped. "I didn't say you had anything to do with it. I was just saying, you know, if somebody got in there... like me! I have my wiles, as you know, so it would be simple. And more effective than if you did it, probably, so it's— why would it ever involve you? Pssh. That'd be silly."

Gil furrows his eyebrows. (Buster appears to be distracting him.) "...Yes. What wiles? I-I mean— what do you mean, 'get in'? That—"

"We shall discuss this later! The point is, I indeed have a plan!" Richard should hear it before anybody else does, you're pretty sure. "So there is no need to discourse on this matter further. A method of entrance shall be acquired, end of. As for the exit—"

"If you're smashing one whazzit into the other one," Madrigal says, "makes sense you'd leave into the new one, right? So you don't have to worry about shit disintegrating after you blow it up, however you're doing that. Your magic bomb. Whatever."

You don't want to take ideas from Madrigal, but escaping into the ex-Namway facility sounds highly sensible. You don't have to worry about making your own exit, that way, just finding the built-in one. "I guess so. And it's not a magyck bomb! The nature of the— the incendiary device, or devices, has not yet been determined. So—"

"Better ask Ellery, then," Earl says. "Guy loves blowing himself the fuck up, huh? Don't get me wrong, comes back every time! Just saying, if you're looking for ideas..."

You should probably (ugh) check back in with Real Ellery, one of these days, to fill him in on the fleshed-out plan. May as well ask him about the bomb or bomb-like object(s), even if you don't use his dumb ideas. "Maybe. I guess. ...Yeah."

"Great," says Pat, after a moment. "Done talking shop?"

You fold your arms. "What do you think of the plan?"

"You're now marginally less likely to get yourself killed. Congratulations." She claps the tips of her fingers against the base of her palm. "Talk to me if you're planning to commission something for this. Otherwise, this is depressing. Is Buster okay over there?"

Buster hasn't moved off Gil's chest. Maybe that's what she's referring to. "Uhh," Gil says. "We're just having a... I-I-I-I mean, I'm having a... yeah."

"He made a friend! Or he thinks you look tasty— aha! Just kidding!" Earl jostles Gil's shoulder. Buster doesn't move. "You're way too big to eat! I bet he—"

Things move on from you.

>CURRENT HEADSPACE PLAN:
>Entrance: ???
>Intel: Highly ethical possession scheme
>Route: Down
>Camouflage: ???
>Bomb: ??? [Ask Ellery?]
>Ace In The Hole: ???
>Siphon: Work-in-progress
>Evacuation: Merge with ex-Namway facility
>Exit: Flee through ex-Namway facility

(Choices next.)

>Who do you spend the most time chitchatting with? (You will always regain ID. Feel free to write-in other topics to discuss with the person of your choice.)

>[1] Gil. Your best retainer. Buster isn't... talking to him, is it?
>[2] Earl. He's so hyper-friendly (and loud...) that it's hard not to. It might behoove you to get to know him better before you entrust your safeties to one another.
>[3] Pat. You mutually dislike each other, but maybe there's more common ground than you think. What was she talking about with Gil when they were alone earlier?
>[4] Madrigal. She is still under the illusion that she "rescued herself from her kidnapping without any help." This isn't going to work. Attempt to convince her to give you some credit, or at least a THANK YOU for solving her dumb mystery.
>[5] Richard. Okay, so you're not chitchatting aloud, here— but you want his perspective on your newly hatched "possess somebody for a whole week" plan.
>[6] Write-in?

>>5636966
>[5] Richard. Okay, so you're not chitchatting aloud, here— but you want his perspective on your newly hatched "possess somebody for a whole week" plan.

>>5636965
>5

>>5636926
>le big longpost

Uh, I'll be frank. I wrote my post on an hour/amount of sleep where my brain was basically in tard-mode, so my thought process at that hour was something along the lines of, "hurhurhur what if we can get gil to shoot lasers/ transcend to ultra-gil mode with his blessing?" (not in those exact words, but pretty much along those sorts of lines)

>are u even fokin paying attention to these threads wtf?
Refer to the first spoiler. Late hour and minimal sleep.

>wait do you mean you want GIL in the driver's seat more often??
Poorly worded as that was, that wasn't I was trying to get at-- more like how can his powers be leveraged to further benefit Charlotte (which you pretty much answered). My thought process behind this was pretty much the same as in the first spoiler ("hurr-durr lasers").


All confusion aside, I would greatly advise you to take anything said in that previous post with a grain of salt.

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>>5637135
>spoilers
You're all good, bud. Lord knows how many sleep-deprived updates I've written.

>"hurhurhur what if we can get gil to shoot lasers/ transcend to ultra-gil mode with his blessing?"

Laser-shooting UltraGil is not really a typical blessing usecase, as mentioned-- the majority of the time, it's going to be a lot more subtle and externally focused. This being said, a couple things are true: Gil isn't real, lower layers of manses open up a lot of possibilities, and nothing's stopping the blessing from assisting *self*-transformations.

What I mean is that, if sufficiently disinhibited, and if in a sufficiently disinhibited location, Gil is in theory capable of a whole lot of stuff. This wouldn't be *caused* by the blessing in and of itself, but it could influence the results quite a bit. Main problem is, Gil doesn't have a whole lot of interest in shooting lasers, and is in fact severely inhibited... but you know. It's not out of the question.


>how can his powers be leveraged to further benefit Charlotte

He'll figure stuff out. Something to keep in mind is that, if Gil were airdropped into that fantasy-themed manse, he wouldn't be a wizard or sorcerer or whatnot-- he'd be a cleric. (Okay, a cleric/artificer.) The blessing is very much a "support" kind of thing already, so benefiting Charlotte is somewhat built in.

>>5636966
>5

>>5636980
>>5637135
>>5637386
>[5]
Writing.

I have ~800 words written, but they don't lead to a good wrapping-up point and I'm falling asleep at the laptop. Apologies, and will continue trucking away at it tomorrow.

>Sound like a plan?

You know what? Everybody else hasn't moved on from you— you are moving on from them. You will not fall for their frivolous chitchat, nor for their wan, mewling attempts to "include you in the conversation." You see through their lies. Besides, it's not as though you wanted to talk to any of them, anyhow— you have better people. People who actually care about you, even if they had to die to do it.

"Charlie," Richard says, "you weren't slighted. Do you expect to consume the center of attention for all eternity? Surely you know that's unrealistic."

Richard doesn't care about you either. You are alone in this world. You throw a small rock at him.

"There's no need to be petulant." It skids straight through his shoulder and bounces against the wall. "Why don't you rejoin them, primrose? You're generating your own unhappiness, at this point. If it's a matter of not knowing what to say, I could certainly—"

You plink another rock through his forehead. "—assist... is something else troubling you? This feels disproportionate, frankly. Should I be making guesses? Let me see."

"No!" you say, but Richard has already pressed a manicured thumb to your temple. "Ah. Second-guessing yourself? How unlike you."

What? What the hell is he on about? Point to one single place where you've been second-guessing yourself. One. Your plan is genius, albeit unfinished, and when it is finished you'll have zero difficulty executing it, on account of your—

"There's no need to get defensive. Doubt is a natural emotion, and it might be good for you to express it more often, yes? How about you try now? Tell me what troubles you, primrose. I am your listening ear."

More like prying eyes— you bet he already knows, just wants to lord it over you by dragging this out as long as possible. Look at him in his dumb sweater; his primly knotted tie; his shiny, shiny shoes. Look at your pinched expression in his shiny shoes.

If he already knows, then you lose this interaction. Richard is going to smug all over you no matter what. Might as well get things over with, then—

What did he mean, "growing up"? Earlier.

"Oh, Charlie. Is that all?" He levers himself to the floor, puts his hand on your bent knee. "I didn't mean anything odd by it."

Then he better explain what possessing somebody has to do with growing up. You are grown.

"Ah, but you'll always be my darling primrose, won't you?" You flinch as Richard jostles you playfully. "Really, though, I meant it in such a way as... would you entrust a child with a loaded rifle? Or a lit stick of dynamite? Would you hand a child a bottle and let it drink itself to death? Or a needle, and allow it to laugh itself there?"

Depends. Does the family have any sense of propriety?

(1/...6?)

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"Don't take it so literally. Would you allow a child such things? Would most people?" He raises his eyebrows. "I would expect not, because a child has yet to meet death. It doesn't know the meaning of it, nor the weight. It is only when the child grows that it is found worthy of death's facilitators, and is able to do what it will with them."

...What you did isn't a loaded rifle.

"No, it's quite worse— at least a gunshot is rapid. I thought you acquitted yourself well, however, for a first sip at the poison well. Perhaps yesterday prebloodied you." He stands, offering you a hand.

You stay seated. Gunshots? Poison? Blood? Ha ha. You know what this is. He's trying to instill doubt in you. He's trying to make it out like you're already "second-guessing" yourself, whatever that means, while he goes and snakes into your ear— but you're wise to his tricks. Your possessing plan is phenomenal, as your plans always are, and you're not budging one—

"You know that's not the word for it, Charlie? 'Possessing.' You've invented that yourself." Richard tucks his hands behind his back. "Would you like to know the original?"

No.

"..." You lean back as Richard acquires a look of displeasure, or so it seems— as the seconds click past, you realize it's more like confoundment. His brow is creased, and his eyes have gone a tinge glassy. "..." he says. "...I'm sorry, I... I can't recall the word... only something approximate."

"Um," you say, then shut your mouth. Fine. Approximate is fine? Anything so he stops looking so weird.

"Then I believe," he says slowly, "it is something in the spirit of 'the small death.' What you did. What I do. The small death."

Okay, he's not even pretending not to be trying to scare you.

"Nothing of that sort, Charlie, I... I'm sorry, I... perhaps it translates poorly..." He's still looking weird, if not weirder, which could be another clever trick— except he's still apologizing. For all his deception, Richard never stooped so low, or went quite so green around the edges.

Is he ill?

"No, no, I..." Richard waves off your question, even as he squints fixedly at nothing. "I apologize. I feel as though I've... begun in the wrong way. Given the wrong impression. You came to me for surety, and I've only..." He sighs. "May I begin again?"

What? Sure? As long as it doesn't take too long— he talks so much already.

"Thank you." He crouches down and presses his thumb against your forehead. Firmly, he drags it up to your hairline. Your eyes roll upward to match.

*

Ow! Damnit! Where are you? You'd just finished going through the plan, and now you— and now— oh. You're in the same room, still, with the light pouring through the ceiling. Specklike plankton are swarming near it. And that's everybody just over there, and Richard... very close to you. Is everything okay?

(2/6?)

"Quite alright, Charlie. I believe you just dozed off. It's been a long few days, hasn't it?" Richard adjusts his primly knotted tie.

Hasn't it ever. Still, that's not very mannerly of you, to go off and fall asleep in the middle of polite conversation. You ought to rejoin—

"Soon, soon, but you wanted space for good reason. From what I could tell, you wanted to discuss the viability of your planned intelligence-gathering method? To be more precise, you were thinking of, er..." He hesitates. "...'possessing' an individual for an extended amount of time. As much time as you could."

Did you tell him all that already? He probably just read your mind. Damnit. Still, this is ringing highly familiar. You're not looking for advice on it, since you've already established your high levels of competence, but if he'd like to give you a quick little sign-off...

"Yes, Charlie, I understand. Would you mind terribly if I sat?"

You shrug. Richard sits. "Thank you. I don't doubt your competence, primrose. I think you acquitted yourself very well. But supplanting somebody for thirty minutes and supplanting somebody for eight days are different animals indeed. I am not dismissing your plan." He raises a hand. (You've opened your mouth.) "I merely believe you should be aware of what you're planning to do, for the sake of your comfort and your safety. It would crush me to discover that you'd suffered some avoidable injury to your being, yes? There's only one Charlie Fawkins out there, and there will never be another; to me you're irreplaceable, primrose."

You flush. It's not like you're looking to get hurt, so—

"No, no, of course not. But it's a difficult and a dangerous thing you're toying with, and I'd like you to be fully aware of that. Not to frighten you." He wraps his arm around your shoulder. "Just for, like I said, your safety and your comfort. Are we together here?"

He sounds sincere. And it's not as if you don't know it's a little bit risky. You just—

"Then allow me to explicate, will you? If you do your best to listen, I'll do my best to be concise." He pats your shoulder. "It may be helpful to begin with the essentials. When you say 'possession,' you are referring to the delicate process where one supplants another's self-concept with their own, taking temporary possession— yes— of their mind and their body. I will not bother detailing how one enacts this supplanting, as you seem to have this covered. The crucial aspect is this. You are aware that the self-concept is not a discrete thing? Rather, it is fashioned by the interplay of the mind and the body, or blood."

This is him being concise?

(3/6?)

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"I was nearly at the conclusion, Charlotte. Consider this interplay, then consider what you are doing. You are placing yourself at the confluence of somebody else's mind and somebody else's body. It is as if you are dropping a boulder into the meeting-place of two mighty rivers. You would not ask 'if' the boulder will be eroded, or even 'when.' Only 'by how much.' Are you following?"

This is him being concise. You know very little about rivers. Did your father actually talk like this, or was it the snakeifying that made him flowery and boring?

Richard flicks your cheek. "Be civil. I'm sure I was voluble before this, given my former profession. Besides, I am attempting to ease you in."

How about he get on with it, instead? Then he can give you the A-OK on the plan, and you can go on back to the group, and Gil can stop glancing your way quite so often.

"Patience is not one of your better qualities, is it." Richard rubs his forehead up and down. "Very well. I will call it what it is, then. 'Possession' is, at a fundamental level, an extended flirtation with death. It is a two-step danced at the edge of the abyss. It is the surrender-art. If accomplished well, it is a liberation and an intoxicant without peer. If accomplished poorly, you may well cease to exist. I assume you would like to accomplish it well."

Um, you would like to keep existing. Yes.

"I'm happy to hear it, primrose. Then, know this." He sits up straighter. "To do such a thing for a short amount of time— all it takes is a degree of viciousness. To maintain it for days on end; to sleep and wake and sleep again as another and still hold in your heart yourself; this requires of a person incredible levels of tenacity, self-possession, insight, vigor, and above all else will. It is the weak-willed who falter in their step, who are washed as gravel down the stream, who are crushed under the heels of the horse, who are lost and who die and who in turn kill their charge. It is the strong who lead, who hold fast, who ride, who thrive. Who let the little death roost inside them and still emerge, whole and dripping, as if new-hatched once again... isn't this awful, Charlie? Isn't it wonderful?"

If you didn't know better, you'd say Richard has been possessed: he is up on his feet, pacing and gesticulating and quivering with alien enthusiasm. He doesn't look or sound much like your father, carrying on like this, but neither does he seem all that Richard-y— there's no trace of condescension or contempt in his speech or manner. He just likes... this. He wants to tell you about... this. Perhaps he's been wanting to tell you for a long, long time. You are beginning to doubt this plan.

Does he consider himself to have a, um, strong will?

"I am here, am I not?"

(4/6?)

(But he isn't. But he did get lost and he did die and what is here now is different from him.) ...Y-es. Definitely here. And do you have a...?

"You have to ask?" He laughs at you. "My beautiful Charlie, you are permanent ink: you leave a terrible mess, and there's no hope of budging you once you're set. Do you disagree?"

...No... well, hey! That's sort of mean, and...

"It's factual, isn't it? You're the most recalcitrant young lady I've ever had the misfortune to meet— come here!—" Bending, he sweeps you into the air, sets you on your feet in front of him, and kisses you cheekily on the forehead. "—and I love you for it, primrose. Of course you have a strong will. With preparation and ample precaution... and perhaps supervision, I trust you to press up against the very limits. It may run in both of us, don't you know it? The drive to do more. Most don't go eight days. Most don't go four days. 12 hours is the proscribed limit, if you can believe that. More causes 'side effects.' 'Lasting ramifications.' I think they're hidebound. They want to deny you the thrill, is all, don't want you to whet your teeth on—"

Again: his eyes sparkling, his demeanor alien. You don't want to think about the things you and Richard may have in common, and certainly not this Richard. You're not sure you want to know who 'they' are. You think he's giving you the A-OK, here— don't know why he didn't lead with that, and skip the scary rambling— but you're beginning to worry about other things. Is he okay?

"Hmm?" He sparkles down at you.

Is he okay. He's not acting normal— or even less normal than he was already acting. Did your father commonly wax rhapsodic about the virtues of spending way too long in somebody else's body? Was that part of his career, too?

"...I don't know what you..." Richard says, but evidently does: it's less that his expression slips and more like it melts off him, his face going waxen in drips and drabs, his eyes guttering. He withdraws, looking muddled. "I... sorry, Charlie, I... er... I apologize if I got carried away. I didn't mean to disturb you, or..."

You weren't disturbed. Okay, maybe a little— but this is worse! What is this supposed to be? Has he fallen ill?

"No, no, I'm... I'm quite alright..." He's blinking rapidly. "I just got confused, back there, I, er— yes."

Um, okay. But he still approves of you gathering intel? You got the A-OK?

"Yes, yes." He waves vaguely. "With... preparations... I should rest, shouldn't I? I should go and— hnk!"

You are beginning to think Richard is not, as a matter of fact, okay. His expression is doing cartwheels again, not to mention his shoulders and neck— they're thrusting up and back, like a string's tied to them. His eyelids are fluttering.

Before you can do anything (what could you possibly do?), it stops. He relaxes. His face has settled into something amiable. "Ahem," he says. "Sorry about that one, Charlie. Where were we?"

(5/6)

What do you possibly say to that?

"Ah, yes. Preparation, ample precaution. Alas, unless you're on the active prowl for test subjects, I doubt you'll locate anybody willing to aid you there. Even if you promise to be gentle. You should be gentle, Charlie, really... it's not about brutalizing them. Your charge can't stall the changes any more than you can— they'd probably rather prefer you stay yourself, as a matter of fact. In a way you're allies. Remember that." He rubs his chin. "A lack of concrete experience is of concern, though. I'd like to be able to walk you through... hmm."

On the bright side, it's a familiar 'hmm,' and this is a familiar Richard. Whatever's ailing him isn't chronic, at least not yet.

On the unbright side, it's a dangerous 'hmm'. "I suppose," he continues, "I could walk you through, in a sense. From a different perspective, but the basics would hold... not right now, of course. You should go enjoy your time with your friends. In the evening, perhaps."

A), your friends? Really? B), can he just say what he means?

"Sorry, yes. Ahem. I could go ahead and supplant you— for academic purposes, Charlie! Strictly academic." (He saw your face.) "And strictly temporary— I would put you to bed, and that's the whole of it. I have no intent of keeping you longer, unless for some reason you requested it so— and you would be conscious, of course. How else to teach?"

You narrow your eyes.

"Will you think on it?"

>[1] *Fine.* Let Richard take control of you in a while, so he can tell you about how to properly possess somebody, or whatever. You trust him.
>[2] No way. Hard no. So you can wake up in the middle of a heist again? He thinks you'll just *agree* to being used? You don't trust him.
>[3] Write-in?

>>5638658
>[3] Richard sounds like a junkie eyeing the dope. Refuse for his sake.

>>5638658
>>5638660
makes a good point, he was sounding kinda manic there. backing

>>5638658
>>5638660

support

>>5638660
>>5639115
>>5639130
>[3]

Kek. Writing.

>Okay pal let's take a step back here

Sure, you'll think on it. You'll even set aside your immediate kick-in-the-gut reaction, which you'll freely admit is fear: of him lying, or deluding himself, or losing control, and you ending up in a ditch or on the run or with your tongue split down the middle. So far, this has been easily the most common outcome. But you're setting that aside. This is Nice Richard, kneaded and harmless, and you're going to have faith that he wouldn't... that your father wouldn't do those things to you.

With that faith held, then— isn't this still a terrible idea? Like, sincerely terrible? God-awful? You may have accepted the existence of Nice Richard, but you're not about to start pretending he's the original article, not when he died in front of you. (Not when you killed him.) Yesterday he was boxed, against his will, into the mindset of your late father; yesterday you killed him; yesterday he came back containing a thick milkshake streak of your late father. You lack the stomach to debate whether this was right, or just, or fair: it was, is all, and it makes logical sense. (He would've liked for you to use logical sense.) Cause and effect.

You're just thinking that it can't be very healthy. Maybe it is healthy. You don't know. But the way he's talking now, with the abyss and erosions and deaths and things— he's saying he's dodged all that, or mastered it, one of the two. And maybe he has. You don't know. But...

You can't summon him. He's dead. It's an illusion. The only thing you're doing is writing over me, which—

...what is the difference between possession and what happened yesterday? Your father wasn't really real, or there, you guess, but in all other respects— was Richard's self-concept not, er, supplanted? Was he not two-stepping on the abyss's razor edge, and then you came and, er, pushed him off? Into the abyss? Never to return?

You're not an expert in dumb metaphysical stuff like this. You could be completely making things up. You probably are, and if Richard were here in his former state he'd probably be lecturing you all about it. In the absence of that, though, you're forced to deduce that Richard has suffered something awfully like critical possession failure... (or whatever stupid name it probably actually has)...

...so trying to pile another possession onto that smoking wreckage is likely a piss-poor idea? You don't want Richard to die. Even when you killed him, you didn't want him to die. And, frankly, you're worried by his sprightly attitude to almost-dying. (On purpose!) It's best, therefore, that you decline. Nicely. So he doesn't get any ideas.

(1/4)

You open your mouth to do so, but Richard's face has already settled. "Ah, well. I do understand. I'd just like to give you a proper overview, Charlie, so you're not in the dark... I would do so verbally, but I understand that you're more of an, ah, hands-on learner? You should do something. If you gave him a small push, would Mr. Wallace help us out, do you think?"

Would Gil let you possess him? For practice? If you pushed him, he'd probably do about anything, but that's not what a retainer is supposed to be. He should do things gladly for you, since you're just that incredible.

"That's very noble, primrose. I can hardly argue." Richard bows his head in mock-surrender. "I tend to agree that he'd be reticent about anything full-body. Do you think, though, that he would go in for some partial testing? Far less invasive, still of some educational value..."

Partial testing?

"Oh, you know what it is. One moment." He shuts his eyes and feels his way to your wrist, wrapping his fingers all the way around it. Then he exhales.

>[-1 ID: 6/14]

You manage to turn your yelp into a gasp, but only barely: your other hand is moving against your will, flexing and turning and making claw-shapes. Something sizzles up your wrist and down your spine. It lasts for all of five seconds, which is enough time for Madrigal to shout, lazily: "Everything okay over there?"

It could be better! But Richard has released you, and looks apologetic. "Er, yes. You get the picture. It's of some limited utility, but useful mainly in its transferable lessons—"

"Yeah," you say back to Madrigal— to everybody. Everybody's looking at you. God! "Yeah! I just... um..."

"Well, that's good. Richard giving you shit, or something?"

How does she—?! No, wait. She knows. They all know, to some extent, which is... God! That may be even worse! Far more embarrassing, at the least. Is Richard done?

"More or less." He clears his throat. "Could you inquire about the possibility with Mr. Wallace? Gil? I don't think he's fond of me. Alternately, if you think others would be receptive..."

Yeah, yeah. Maybe you'll just go possess Ellery, serve him right. (But then you'd have to be Ellery, the worst fate known to man... tough decision.) In any case, from the tenor of things, you're beginning to feel as though you've been the subject of attention for some time. "N- no," you say. "Not that I was necessarily speaking to anybody at all! I could have been enjoying my solitude, as befits, a, um..."

"Doing a lot of looking back and forth," Pat says, reclining on her elbows.

"...and gesturing..." Gil adds, traitorously.

Damnit! "Perhaps I was envisioning a... a violent swordfight? My imagination is quite vigorous..."

Madrigal raises her eyebrows. "How was he, though."

You scowl. "Fine. Weird. What kind of dumb stuff have you all been doing?"

-

(2/4)

-

Having taken note of the cloud of shrimp, they have been debating whether it'd be preferable to be Bug Man or Shrimp Man. Or which could win in a fight. (Gil's input: "...Are guns allowed?") Or if they would team up against a new challenger, Tubeworm Man, who makes up in raw strength what he lacks in dexterity. Or something like that, like all of that— it takes on a manic tone in the retelling, everybody jabbering over one another, even Pat, even Bug Man himself, who seems less fazed by the razzing than you would've expected. Good for him! Unless he's keeping it all inside, and is going to melt down all over you later, but that's a later problem.

You're folded into the conversation easily enough, though you suffer some razzing of your own. (With Richard's encouragement, you grin and bear it.) Even afterwards, though, the atmosphere remains strangely intense. Not negative, per se, but— 'manic' remains a good word for it. 'Fevered.' You sense it, and Richard senses it, and he's pleased to hover nearby and help you disentangle such a complex social dynamic. Isn't this interesting?

'Interesting' isn't the word you'd use: you're mainly paranoid that Madrigal and Pat (known Charlotte-dislikers) have coerced the men into planting a trap for you, and they'll all pretend it's fine and they like you, but putting one single foot wrong will put you right at the center of mockery. (Yes. It is that kind of atmosphere— the back rooms of a cotillion.) You hold this assumption to be true for quite a while, before Richard completes his analysis, stating this:

That it appears as though all four participants have entered into an unspoken social compact to entertain themselves and each other, lest the long crawling hours of an empty day of an empty week of an empty year fall upon them; that in addition, Madrigal and Pat are both women of a certain nature, best characterized (perhaps) as "high-powered" or "strong-willed"; that, for all their professed friendship, there may be a submerged rivalry between the two of them; that they may each view the compact, at a level beneath their notice, as something they can 'win' at. In addition, Earl is naturally an aggressive man, even if it is directed in inoffensive ways, and Gil is pliable. Therefore—

Oh! Okay. So it's not about you. Madrigal and Pat (and the other two, you suppose) are just... competing. To be the best at conversation, and/or having fun.

Richard chomps down on his cigarette. "Something like that, yes, Charlie. To the best of my—"

That's excellent. You know how to handle that, easy— you shall enter the competition, beat the ever-living tar out of everybody, and emerge victorious. You shall be the winningest fun-haver. Sound good?

He contemplates this. "Well, er... as long as you're having fun, I suppose..."

Precisely!

-

(3/4)

-

>[ID: 10/14]

You win. Well, you think you won— you're suspicious that everybody else thinks they won, also. ("That's how socializing functions," says Richard, but what kind of cop-out is that?) After quote-"touring"-end quote Hellsbells, all four tunnels of it, you have wound back up at Earl's. It's unclear what time it is. Afternoon? Night? You're worn out, in any case— from victory, to be clear. Victory. You will be taking a victory nap.

Earl has a similar idea. "Well, folks, I've got to retire early— but please! Stay up as long as you like! My little place is yours, really. I'll be here to get you all on your way in the morning, of course, of course—"

Madrigal is shuffling cards. "Blackjack," she says, at your watchful gaze. "What, Game Night? Ha-ha. Maybe once I'm back and settled. Are you playing?"

With no Earl, that leaves Pat and... Gil, who startles when you catch his eye. "What?"

"I'm taking a nap," you say skeptically.

"Oh... have fun?" He eyes you, then the cards. "Oh. Um. Do you need...?"

>(Heist after this.)

>[1] No. He better win— on your behalf, of course. (Ignorance is bliss. More than likely, you'll be in and out and he'd never even notice you missing.)
>[2] Yeah, real quick. Let him know where you're going with Earl. You don't know if he'll be pleased about it, and it might stress him out for the duration, but you'd prefer that to something happening to you with no warning.
>>[A] OPTIONAL: Do you want to give Gil any instructions in your absence? Do you want him to come find you after a certain amount of time, hang out in your manse as a backup plan, work on something while you're gone... or you could just let him have his beauty sleep. [Write-in.]
>[3] Write-in. (Any other quick things to mention?)

>>5639608
>2
mentioning it in case he wants to come, but if not he can beauty sleep

>>5639608
>>[2] Yeah, real quick. Let him know where you're going with Earl. You don't know if he'll be pleased about it, and it might stress him out for the duration, but you'd prefer that to something happening to you with no warning.

>>5639765
>>5640220
>[2]
Writing.

>>5639765
>mentioning it in case he wants to come
You guys voted against him actually tagging along earlier, but I'll assume you mean "come along as backup" (i.e. he hangs out in your manse and doesn't do anything unless super necessary).

>Heads up

"Real quick," you say, and beckon him over from Madrigal and Pat. "So I'm, um, doing something tonight. Outside."

"What?" Gil evaluates you. "...Something dangerous?"

"No! Maybe. I— I don't fully know the nature of— I'll be fine. I just wanted to let you know, so if you wake up and can't find me... that's where I'll be."

"Outside," he echoes.

"Yes! Outside! Exactly." You bob your head. "Okay. That's all."

"Do you know... what sort of a thing?" Gil is grimacing. "Does i-i-it have anything to do with blood, or...?"

"Gil! It's not a ritual! I'm doing someone a favor, alright? It may... it may involve some stealing, of something, I don't know what. And some... fighting. Maybe. If it goes bad. It's a— a heist-type situation, you see, and—"

He exhales, tilting his head back. "Geez. That's not so bad."

"Correct?" Is that a positive reaction?

"As long as you stay safe... um, are you sure you don't want me there? Not that I-I-I do heists, or anything, but... just in case you have a flare-up, or..."

You're already speaking quietly, but he shifted into a proper mumble halfway through that. You respond to the part you could hear. "I'm not really allowed a +1."

"Aw." He rubs his nose. "I-I get it."

"Plus Richard will be there, so... um, he doesn't count as a +1. I'll be fine, I mean. He's nice now."

"Yeah... um, i-i-is there anything I can do? Though?" He tugs at his suspenders. "I-I-I'd feel like shit if you out there getting hurt while I-I just..."

Calm down— this is a normal thing for him to say. This is how a retainer should feel. No reason to make a big deal of it. "Well, naturally— I won't get hurt, though. So that's no problem. Otherwise, I don't think you can... huh. Aren't you in my manse right now? I mean, in—" You poke your head.

"Oh. ...Yeah?"

"So you'll be coming along! Sort of. And Richard can come talk to you if things get really bad, which they won't." You place your hands on your hips. "So there! Problem solved. Go play cards. Go win at cards. You have to defend our honor, Gilbert!"

"Uhhhhhhhh," he says. "Yes...?"

"Excellent! I'm going to sleep now. See you tomorrow!"

You leave.

-

Hatefully, Earl has seen fit to claim your— okay, "his"— bed for his own, leaving you to scavenge for an alternative. Where did everybody else sleep last night? You poke your head into several more tiny, cluttered rooms before locating one with an armchair wedged into the back of it. (And you do mean wedged. There are scuff marks on the walls.) The stuffing's coming out of the back, stained red from algae, and you choose not to think what creatures must live inside it. It will have to do.

(1/5)

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You had hoped you'd pass out right away, but after a good ten minutes of trying to get comfortable you're exactly how you started. ...Except mildly irritated and even less sleepy. Damnit. A lesser individual would give up here and slink back to lose at cards, but you refuse to let yourself be bested by a bed-stealer. Richard?

He stands in the crack between the chair and the wall. "Is there something I can do?"

When isn't there? You just need him to, um—

"Certainly, primrose. Anything for you." He lays his fingertips on your forehead, then hesitates. "Dreaming or no dreaming?"

You had no idea this was something he had power over. ...Can he make sure they're good dreams?

"Ah." You feel his weight shift. "I'm afraid not. Nothing may be best, then."

Yeah. Nothing may be best. You sit there and let him pour the hot sand into you, filling your insides, making you lumpen and weighted and thoughtless. You loll in the chair and pass into sleep. You do not dream.

-

Nevertheless, that's your first instinct when awoken: a nightmare! There is a large dark figure over you, you are in imminent danger, you must run or punch or scr—

A hand is clapped over your mouth, and you scream into it and kick back into the armchair. "Shhh-hh!" your assailant counters, and gives something a hard squeeze— a glorb. Your eyes water against it. "Hey, kid! It's just me! Remember? We're doing the...?"

It's just Earl. You blink hard and settle down; he lets you go. "Shit! You really are feisty! Remind me not to get on your bad side, haw-haw." The glorb casts quivery shadows as Earl folds his arms. "Need a hand?"

"No," you say, and breathe deep before standing. "You know where we're going?"

"Sure do. I'll get us there before I space, so don't pay that any attention. Trust me, you'll know when I do! Haw-haw. Need any last things before we skedaddle?"

Do you have The Sword? Of course. Is Richard around? Not at the moment, but surely he'll come when he's called. That's all you can think of. (You, er, embrace minimalism.) "Um, I'm good."

"I figured! I think you packed light last time, too. From what I remember, anyhow, haw-haw. Should we beat it before we wake the whole gang up?"

It's a gang, now? Whatever— you have no reason to argue. You trail Earl to the front door, stepping lightly around a sacked-out Madrigal on the settee, and wait as he jams himself through.

As he jams himself through? Huh. Earl was always tall, yes, and broad, certainly, but you can't remember him having any difficulty with doors. Has he gained a couple of inches in height? And... in the biceps? He was a touch paunchy beforehand, but now his torso's smooth and barreled. Not that you're staring. His shirt is small, and only half-on; you have no choice in the matter. It's just—

(2/5)

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He's noticed you. "Haw-haw-haw! Sharp eye! I like to pre-dose before I get on up there— makes the nasty stuff go down cleaner, since I've already got some in the system."

Oh, God. That explains the crazed laughter. "You're drugged?"

"That's the fucking biz, kid! Not by much, though. 10%'s just a buzz." He flashes his false teeth. "Ready when you are."

Your aunt must be waking up in cold sweats. At least Earl seems... docile? And nonreligious? That's important. If anything, he's really sticking it to the pagans; going and using their sacred magyck whatsit for crass commercialism. What would stupid Arledge have to say about this? Ha. All for a good cause, then.

Poor Earl has to stoop all the way through the tunnel outside, plus the web of tunnels that follow: tunnels with black rock, and red rock, and white; tunnels colonized by clams and limpets, or by fuzzy crabs; tunnels so choked with steam you're unable to enter. Earl, skin toughened(?), goes in a little ways then retreats for your sake: we'll go around, he says. Once he enters the steam and emerges coughing like a smoker: that one's poisonous, he says. We'll go around.

You're sure Richard could cook something up to let you tolerate the heat, and/or the poisonous gases, but you think he may be resting— since he might be ill, you don't want to bother him. Instead, Earl keeps reflexively offering you drugs. (He seems to think it's the polite thing to do.) "You really sure? At this concentration it's as safe as it gets!"

You reiterate that you're sure, and he lets it drop... this time. Things improve when you emerge into an area with higher ceilings, and Earl finally gets to crack his back. "Shit! That feels good. How are you doing? Getting tired? They don't make these things easy to get to, sorry to say..."

"Um, I'm okay." Between the lack of sky and your sudden awakening, it's hard to say how long you've been going for. "Maybe we should sit down for a minute? Just a minute, though, I'm not actually—"

Earl surveys the path before you: pockmarked with holes in the wall (eel dens?), it slopes steeply upward. "Hmm. Well, we could do that, for sure. But, kid, what if I just took a load off you?"

You don't have anything he can carry— The Sword is firmly off-limits, and not that heavy, anyhow. "Huh?"

"Do you want a ride?" He grins. "I can lift you no problem."

Oh. Uh... on his back, you presume? Is that untoward? He's out of eligibility for you, to be certain— was probably out of eligibility whenever he drowned, and now, what, could be your father's age? A 'confirmed bachelor,' your aunt would say. Non-threatening. Also, you wouldn't complain about not having to walk further. You nod gingerly.

"Hoo-kay! Step here, then." He cups his hands as a foothold, remaining placid as you step upon them and shimmy yourself into position. "Hey, that's right. Can't feel a thing. Comfortable?"

(3/5)

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As much as you can be in such a position. You wrap your arms around his thick neck as he stabilizes you by your knees. "...Yeah," you say.

"Glad I'm useful for something. Haw-haw."

Embarrassingly, Earl sets off at a faster clip than he was going before— he wasn't waiting around for you, was he? Whatever the case, your added weight isn't posing him much challenge. He (and you) scale the slope in record time, then swing around a bend, winding up in the base of a sinkhole. He (and you) take the long ladder up the side, thrown down by someone long ago, and emerge into the Flats at night. Earl has entrusted you with holding the glorb, and you dangle it helpfully above his head as he shields his eyes, swivels his head, and spots something: a dip in the land, marked by a makeshift flag in gold.

He (and you) trek there— he does the trekking, while you admire the glassy water all above you. How long has it been since you've seen the real, actual sky? Two or three days? You don't think you could live in Hellsbells, or not happily.

You come to the flag, and Earl crouches to let you off. He hasn't broken a sweat, it seems, and flashes you a merry thumbs-up. Should you thank him? But he's the one who offered in the first place, and you made him feel useful— so maybe you're already even? You don't want to give him any improper ideas. Oh, he's stood. Oh, he's rounding the dip. That works too.

"—fuckin' took you long enough, Earl—"

"—not what I'd expect from a professional—"

You round the dip, too, and discover two people camped out against it— one lanky fish, one guy you've never seen before. He's wearing a sinister cloak, so you're immediately jealous of him. Perhaps he's jealous of you back, because he cuts himself off and extends a ring-laden hand in your direction. "Who is this?"

"My handler," Earl says roughly. "Frances."

"Her?" the fish snaps, lowering its food stick(?). "Again? You've got to be yanking—"

"We didn't agree on an additional person," Cloak Man says. "The payout is not being increased."

"I don't think you get what a handler is, pal. She—" Your back is slapped, hard. "—will ensure your head isn't bit off. Real essential. Right, 'licia?"

"Don't know why you're dragging this bitch back into it—" The fish pauses to chomp at its stick. "—but sure, yeah. He's not joking about the heads, Wayne. That shit's real."

"I also have a sword," you offer. "And various other talents, which I can list if—"

"I don't want a list." Cloak Guy (Wayne?) levies his dramatic hand at Earl. "If she ruins anything, this is going on your head. It's going out of your share regardless."

"Nothing's getting ruined," Earl says. "And if I hear you treated her like dogshit, then I'll—"

(4/5)