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>[ELSEWHERE]
>[ELSEWHEN]

Your name is ROSCOE PRATER, but the ruder type of out-of-towners know you as "that jerk who runs the general store." Your opinion is, you'd be a little nicer if they took the 10 seconds to learn your name, but that's out-of-towners for you. No common decency.

You'll own the thing about the general store, though— really, you own the whole store. (That's a joke. Laugh.) Really, you own it, operate it, organize it, stock it, and scrub it down every week, so the algae and the limpets can't creep in and ruin the product. You sleep in the back room. You'd say it's your job, but nobody's employing you. You'd say it's a living, but you've been dead or thereabouts for 15 years or thereabouts and don't turn a profit anyhow. It sure isn't your calling, if you ever had one of those.

But it's what you do, and it keeps you on a schedule and in a rhythm and in constant contact with the neighbors, and Lindew's Landing would be a shit-ass excuse for a hamlet if it didn't even have a store. (And guess what: before you came along, it didn't.) You provide a public service for a couple dozen people. That's nothing to sneeze at.

On dreary days like these, though, it's hard to feel it. When the baseboards have been scoured, the racks reshuffled, this week's delivery delayed, and nobody's come in since early morning, it's all you can do not to bolt the door and go get a stiff drink. (Jacques never has a dreary day.) But you're that jerk who runs the general store, and if you don't run the general store, you're just a jerk.

Your small but exceptionally tidy store lies before you. You sit in an understuffed chair behind the store counter, which holds a scale for the chit (empty) and a half-played game of solitaire (abandoned 10 minutes ago). You're a grown-ass man who can entertain himself. Wat do?

>[1] You haven't freshened up the memorial yet. Do that. There's been too many dead recently.
>[2] Today's the day the weekly bulletin gets sent around, typically, but nobody's come in to drop it off yet. See if it's been left outside.
>[3] Years ago, somebody taught you how to read fortunes in a pack of cards. You don't remember that much anymore, and you don't place a lot of stock in it, but you're also bored as shit and have a pack of cards.
>[4] Write-in? (Subject to veto.)

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>Announcements
Hi everybody! I'm back. At the end of last thread, I announced some burgeoning wrist issues that could impact my writing schedule. I regret to say that I'm still dealing with these issues, which are relatively mild but may take a few more months to fully heal. However, my physical therapist has given me the go-ahead to run my quest anyways, provided that I write for relatively limited periods and take breaks if I begin to get sore. Which brings us to the side-thread.

>A note on structure
If it wasn't obvious, CODICIL is not a regular Redux thread: this is a side thread that will focus on the POVs of various minor or underexplored characters. Updates are likely to be shorter than typical Redux updates (1-2 posts) and to feature less complex choices. You are welcome to participate even if you aren't fully caught up on the main quest, though to maximize comprehension you may want to have read up through Thread 33.

>A note on schedule
Even though they're shorter, updates will be once a day as normal to preserve my wrists. (If they're exceptionally short, I may bump that to two.) If health allows, I hope to return to Thread 36 and my regular style and schedule by the end of November or beginning of December, after this thread's end and my usual break.

>A note on inspiration
The structure of this thread was directly inspired by BananasQM's Supreme Space Monke Ruler Quest's "Dreams" sidethread---it won't be 1:1, but I probably wouldn't be writing this thread like this if I didn't read that one, so thank you Bananas.

>A note on canonicity
As was established way back in Thread 14, alternate timelines are real in the Drowned setting. You may assume all events depicted in this thread take place in the "main timeline" of the quest, except if/when the main quest ever contradicts or obviates anything depicted. If that's the case, the main quest's version of events should be considered accurate, and this side-thread's contradicted version should be considered to take place in an alternate timeline.

>A note on art
I've been drawing a little bit, but I really shouldn't be. Don't expect much custom art this thread. Drawing traditionally doesn't seem to bother my wrists as much, so you might see a little of that.

That's all I have. As always, please direct any comments, questions, or concerns my way, and let's have a good time together!

>>5796139
>[3] Years ago, somebody taught you how to read fortunes in a pack of cards. You don't remember that much anymore, and you don't place a lot of stock in it, but you're also bored as shit and have a pack of cards.

>>5796139
>>[1] You haven't freshened up the memorial yet. Do that. There's been too many dead recently.

>>5796142
>trad art
LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

>>5796139
>2
Did not know Codicil was a word

>[1] You haven't freshened up the memorial yet. Do that. There's been too many dead recently.

>>5796142
What exactly is the setting about?

>>5797055
Based in the image I think you're reverse drowning or something.

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>>5797055
>>5797056
After the murder of humanity's patron sea-gods and subsequent apocalyptic flood 200 years ago, humanity clings on atop isolated, overpopulated vertical city-states called "Pillars." Crimes are often punished and murder is often accomplished via kicking people off the edge of a Pillar into the ocean, where they presumably drown, never to be seen again.

What most people abovewater are unaware of is that people who "drown" don't actually usually die. Instead, they undergo some kind of process that leaves them alive and conscious on the seafloor, breathing water, unable to swim, and quasi-immortal-- flesh wounds heal rapidly, and a drowned person doesn't appear to age. Major trauma still kills, which is unfortunate, because the seafloor tends to be populated with hungry beasts, crazy people, and irritable fish-people natives. If you avoid that, you still run the risk of completely losing your marbles, because things are only semi-real underwater and things can get trippy real quick.

In the main quest, the MC is currently unraveling a conspiracy centered around a shady goo-clone manufacturer, a mind-palace startup harvesting people's consciousnesses, and lots and lots of snakes (who are reality viruses / possible businesspeople). She is also attempting to deal with the snake in her head who may or may not be her dead father but definitely believes he's her dead father after she killed him (the snake) in a ritual to a very large and murderous snake god. Also, she's trying to track down her reality-warping family heirloom, which got stolen 20 threads ago by a woman who's going to use it to turn into a god.

Almost none of this is relevant to the current POV, who is literally just some guy who runs a store. Underwater.

This thread isn't really intended to be a good introduction to the setting or the quest as a whole, so there may not be much in the way of context. If you're new, you're still welcome to play along as you're able-- things that happen in this thread are unlikely to negatively affect the main story, so there's no need to worry about "messing things up." If the premise interests you and you want to check out the main quest, I recommend starting with the original Drowned Quest, which (fair warning) is janky and unfinished but still provides the best intro to the world: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=drowned%20quest

>>5797056
The OP image is a flipped and recolored version of the regular OP (pic). I'll leave its significance up to interpretation.

>>5796155
>>5797037
>[1]

>>5796187
>[2]

>>5796145
>[3]

Called for [1] and writing shortly.

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>Respect for the dead

You push a jack of claws around the counter with the tip of your finger. What to do. What to do. Isn't that the eternal question down here? It's kind of a sick joke: a second chance, a brand new quote-end quote "life", and nobody you know or love to spend it with, and nothing to do. Nobody expects that last one. You didn't. (Not that you intended to come down here.) But think about it: on one hand, if you're not hard-pressed to eat, shit, or cough up for rent, you don't have a ton of reason to put yourself to work. On the other hand, it's not like the ocean floor is awash in classical leisure activities. Maybe out West, they have it built up a little more. But here? Lindew's Landing is 50 people tops, and that camp another 30 or so, and on all sides of you is shitty swamp. There's your store and the Better Than Nothing and a couple other things, the Corcass Courier bulletin and those thespian jackoffs, the— what was it— the Landing Luminaries, plus some others you're not remembering. There's things to do. Maybe enough to fill some of a day. But all of a day? All of a week? A month? A year? Fifteen years? What do you do if you won't die?

You work. A lot of people seem to drink, and you don't particularly blame them. Or they start getting up in their own head, maybe literally— you never wrapped yours around the whole Headspace "easy-manse" thing, or whatever it was supposed to do, but you know a lot of people got hooked on it— got kind of funny using it, but what do you expect, hooking some pin to your brain? No side effects? Please. Still, better that than going loony all on your own, like what happened to poor Mrs. Lindew. After Tom died, it was all downhill from there.

Oh. That's something you need to do: straighten up the memorial. It's not all that important— there's an actual memorial outside, in the center of town, so nobody's visiting yours— but it was the right thing to do, you thought, to do something. And it's the right thing to maintain it, at least for a while. It's been under a week since the pointless murder spree, less since the all-clear announcement and the wakes. A week or two since Mrs. Lindew's (related? unrelated?) murder. People need the comfort still.

Well, that, and you did halfway hope it'd drum up business. No luck so far, but you've always been one to toss good money after bad... so here you are, rising from the understuffed chair, arcing your back and shoulders, and shuffling over to look.

(1/2)

It's not very much. It's really not very much. It's hard to get your hands on flowers or candles or tintypes down here, even with direct shipments from out West. But you've cleared off a little round table and put a little lacy tablecloth on it and made a sign— a big sign— with "HONORING THE LIVES OF" and six names. Six names. Starting with Margo Lindew and ending with Kerry White, who stopped in often to barter her poetry for any costume jewelry you had in. She was one of those Luminaries, you guess. You had no need for poetry, and actually couldn't stand the stuff, but accepted it anyways. What would you have to gain from turning her down? Did anybody else ever want the jewelry?

You wound up with probably dozens of poems, some on scraps of paper, some just recited to you. When you were putting together the memorial you cleaned your drawers out and dumped some of the scraps onto the table. For people to take, or whatever. You didn't know. Won't be any more where they came from. Because Kerry White died. (That's a joke. Laugh.)

And business is down, because in the past two weeks 10% of your customer base was murdered. Horribly and for no reason, according to the ever-useful Wind Court— it wasn't actually that crazy-eyed out-of-towner girl, says them, but some varietal of psychotic goo-creature imitating her. Because that makes sense. Because that explains the knife in Mrs. Lindew's gut way earlier. Six people dead. Six. Seven, counting one of the Wind Court's own, if you trust their self-reports.

Well, there was a reason you didn't straighten the memorial earlier. Also a reason you strategically positioned it behind a couple shelves, so you couldn't catch it in view. Goddammit. Well, there's nothing left but to—

The door jingles. The door jingles! A customer, or at least a visitor, and a deliverance for this depressing work. Is that too much of an asshole thing to think? A deliverance? Crud. If you're caught dashing away from a memorial to the dead, is that too rude? But if you're not at the counter when somebody stops in, is that going to scare them off? Look sharp!

>[1] Hasten over to the counter. Whoever this is probably can't see you by the memorial, and maybe won't care if they catch you abandoning it. The customer comes first.
>[2] Loiter near the memorial. You'll look like a real upright guy, busy honoring the dead, and most people know you're around somewhere even if not at the counter. (Most townies, anyways.)
>[3] Attempt to crane your head out and catch a glimpse of whoever's come in, so you can tailor your response accordingly. But you'll look a bit odd if they catch you.
>[4] Write-in.

>>5797408
>>[1] Hasten over to the counter. Whoever this is probably can't see you by the memorial, and maybe won't care if they catch you abandoning it. The customer comes first.

>>5797408
>Walk back to the counter at a normal pace

>>5797056
Brainlet answer.

>>5797115
A perfectly succinct answer. Thank you.

>>5797408
>>[1] Hasten over to the counter. Whoever this is probably can't see you by the memorial, and maybe won't care if they catch you abandoning it. The customer comes first.

>>5797408
>[1] Hasten over to the counter. Whoever this is probably can't see you by the memorial, and maybe won't care if they catch you abandoning it. The customer comes first.

That's my vote but I wish the QM would show her booba though

>>5797708
>>5797958
>Hasten

>>5797783
>Chillax

Called for hastening and writing.

>>5797889
Cheers anon.

>Customer satisfaction

Actually, you leap into action before thinking much at all, peeling away from the memorial and jogging down the nearest aisle of shelves. You dart behind your counter in time to see the gaunt face of one of your better customers.

"In a rush, Ross?" says Madrigal Fitzpatrick, who swings the door shut behind her with a thunk and another jingle. "Fucking shark on your tail?"

You dip your chin sardonically and lean against the counter, steadying your pulse. "I can leave if you'd rather."

"Go piss in the wind."

"I imagine that translates to 'I value your dedication to the customer experience'?"

Madrigal starts to formulate a jab, but goes unexpectedly quiet. She looks over and away from you, into the shelves. Before you can change the subject, she straightens and does it for you: "Stock's all the same, huh?"

"Shipment's still delayed." For weeks now. Insanity. "Sorry. I hope there was nothing you needed for your—"

"No. No. It just looks the same as the last time I was in here, and that was..."

"A couple days ago?" you prompt.

"A couple days ago?" Madrigal scoffs heartily. "Roscoe, buddy, I was— shit. A couple days ago?"

"Not for that long. You were with that girl—" The crazy-eyed out-of-towner. The allegedly not-a-murderer. "—with one eye? And the hair? The big, blonde—"

"Son of a fucking bitch. What did we buy?"

You prop your elbows on the counter and cast your mind back. "Clothes for you? Not your usual style. Kind of... dapper. Came with a bow—"

"Zip it. Got the picture. Who paid for it?"

What is this, 20 Questions? You'd be giving just about anybody lip at this point, but the truth is that Madrigal hasn't been in for upwards of a week and, with all due respect, looks like a sack of shit. Clearly something went down. "She did."

"She did? Charlotte? It didn't come out of my—?"

"You didn't say a word the whole time."

Her bony shoulders slump. "Okay. If you're—"

"I'm sure," you say wearily.

"Okay. Thanks. Thanks a lot. You're a real keeper, you know that? Real honest guy." She taps her curled fist into her open palm. "You wouldn't happen to have any reptile feed in at the moment, would you?"

One fun perk of running a store that sells everything is that people come and ask for the weirdest shit. "Like... mice...? Or?"

"Sure, if you have them. Or real fucking little fish, or flakes of some kind, or pellets, or—?" Madrigal relents under your burning stare. "Turns out medium-sized snakes eat memories, or something like that, but Bran— that's my friend Branwen—"

"The animals one?" you say.

"Wow! Yes! Why do I bother talking to anybody else, Roscoe? Bran said she wasn't sure about baby snakes, if they needed to eat something else first. So I thought I'd stock up."

(1/3)

She stops her sentence there and waits expectantly, like that explains anything at all. You control an exhale. "Feel free to look around...? Foodstuffs are aisle 2, but if it'd be nonperishable you can check the back. I guess. Best of luck."

"Don't appreciate the irony, Roscoe," she says as she disappears. You sit down on the chair and shove all the cards together into a pile and exhale louder.

All that and you never asked about the obvious: why does she look like that? Like she lost twenty pounds in three weeks? She didn't have twenty pounds to lose, not to be creepy— but you didn't think people could lose weight down here, or gain it. Or grow their hair out, not like you've being trying to grow your proto-stubble out for a decade, and here comes this woman with a ponytail's worth of extra hair. Every time you feel like you understand something, it slips right out from under you.

But that's fine. That's the way it is. It's not like you're going to go chase Madrigal Fitzpatrick down and demand answers— you're not close, not like that. She comes to your store. You funnel some of your shipments to her side gig. That's how it is.

-

That's still how it is 15 minutes later, except Madrigal hasn't come back out, or called for you, or made any noise at all. She can't have slipped out, or she'd sound the bell. This is weird, isn't it? It's weird. Which is why you've left your seat and padded around the perimeter, trying to determine if there's any funny smells or colors or shimmers in the air— wouldn't be your first outing with a bum product, is all you're saying— when you come abruptly upon the memorial, and upon Madrigal mute in front of it.

You knew you should've straightened it up when you had the chance. Damn. You think about nudging her, rule that out (you're not friends), and settle for the obvious. "Madrigal?"

"Sh—!" She startles violently, nigh-cartoonishly, her whole upper body jerking forward and down. She braces herself against the little table with the little tablecloth and sends a couple poems snowing down. Her curse dies in her throat.

You swallow your first impulse ("Don't touch that!") and shove your hands down your apron pockets. "Uh, sorry. It's just me. Just making sure everything's al— to your satisfaction. Did you find reptile feed, or are you still...?"

"I'm—" She pries herself off the table. "I'm— I got distracted. Sorry."

"It doesn't harm me any." You pause. "Don't have people jostling for space or anything. Sorry that's not as neat as it—"

"That? Huh?" Madrigal follows your line of sight. "Oh, the— I don't give a shit. I don't care about these people, no offense. Uh, rest in peace to them."

(2/3)

Every time you feel like you understand something... "Ah."

"No, it's..." She raps on the table a couple times. "Nevermind. Stupid stuff."

"If there's anything I can do—"

"Don't worry about it, Ross. Nothing to do with you or yours. Uh, no reptile food either, but that's—" She opens her clenched fist, revealing a snake? A... snake... a very small striped snake, its teeth buried in her finger. "Thing's getting along okay so far. So that's fine."

Every time you feel you understand something, it goes right to shit. "Okay. Cool."

"So you can go back to your... whatever you were doing."

You were doing nothing. "Okay. Cool."

"..." Madrigal observes your lack of movement. "I mean, I guess... can I get your advice, Ross? On a hypothetical situation? Hypothetical."

Nothing else to do. "Shoot," you say.

"Say you were talking to someone, and they brought something up you weren't expecting to hear about. And they probably didn't mean it, but it hurt to hear about it, kind of. So you overreact. Not like you slug them or anything, I mean. Maybe you yell at them a little. That kind of stuff. But it wasn't really justified, and you feel kind of shitty about it later, but—" Madrigal holds her finger up. "—the person you were talking to is a bitch. Like, unrelatedly to this, a complete and unabashed bitch, and if you apologize then you're about 90% sure it'll get held over you forever. Or, like, the topic will keep getting brought up in the future. If you apologize. So do you, because it's the right thing to do, and will ease your conscience, or whatever? Or do you not, because you actually fucking live in the real world?"

"This is a detailed hypothetical," you say.

"Shut up."

>[A1] Advise her to apologize. It'll make her feel better. (Hypothetically.)
>[A2] Advise her not to apologize. It's not worth the heartache. (Hypothetically.)
>[A3] Advise her to purchase a tacit apology gift from your store. Because what did she expect, asking you?
>[A4] Write-in.

>[B1] Pry a little about whatever came over her. You're curious. And she's the only one in here.
>[B2] Don't pry. You're not friends.
>[B3] Write-in.

>1-2 post updates
>Third update in: 3 posts
I am so bad at this.

>>5798682
>[A3] Advise her to purchase a tacit apology gift from your store. Because what did she expect, asking you?

>[B1] Pry a little about whatever came over her. You're curious. And she's the only one in here.

>>5798682
>A3
heh

>B1
Friend quest for Roscoe

>>5798682
>>[A3] Advise her to purchase a tacit apology gift from your store. Because what did she expect, asking you?
>>[B1] Pry a little about whatever came over her. You're curious. And she's the only one in here.

>>5798682
>[A3] Advise her to purchase a tacit apology gift from your store. Because what did she expect, asking you?
Lmao

>[B1] Pry a little about whatever came over her. You're curious. And she's the only one in here.

I made poor use of my time yesterday, so unfortunately have some IRL stuff to work on tonight. Update tomorrow, and I'll leave the vote open despite the unanimity just in case somebody has a write-in!

I return.

>>5798766
>>5798926
>>5799031
>>5799192
Called and writing.

>ABC: Always Be Closing

You smirk, leaning back against the shelf. "How about you get her a gift?"

"A gift? Like I want to fuck her? Come on. Why would I—"

"Well, I don't know. I just thought, since you're surrounded by all this stupendous stuff for sale, you might feel inspired to—"

Madrigal's eyes widen, then narrow. "Aw, fuck off."

Got 'er. "Is that not sensible? You're already here, after all, and I can see that chit burning a hole in your pocket, so—"

"You're a cheap rat-bastard, Roscoe."

You thumb at your apron strings. "Thought I was a keeper?"

"I'll keep your fucking balls in an icebox, you keep this up. I ask a sincere question—"

"A sincere hypothetical question?"

"A—" She stumbles. "a— a sincere hypothetical question— and you have to go and—"

"What? I think the idea has merit." You slip a hand behind you and fish out the first thing you touch: a yo-yo, as it turns out. "You don't apologize with it. It's instead of an apology. It kind of means 'I'm sorry,' but it's non-obvious enough that she can read whatever she likes into it— so it doesn't reflect on you. And if you buy it from here, instead of make it yourself, it's not so personal that it sends the wrong signal." You let the yo-yo whir itself to the floor. "Merit."

Madrigal steals a furtive glance at you, like she thinks she's being tricked. "Uh-huh."

"Uh-huh?"

"I'll... think about it." She taps three times behind her, on the memorial table. "I'll look around. You can fuck back off to your cards now, bag boy."

Ouch. Low blow. For all her piss and vinegar, Madrigal is typically pretty kind about your most glaring defect: when the poets opine on eternal youth, what they mean is ages 19-24, give or take, not 16-and-a-half. You'd skulk back to the counter and start burnishing your "I AM 31" sign if you didn't catch the way her whole face dropped— the way her eyes slid to the floor. It is impressively clean, but you don't think that's what she's looking at.

You wind up the yo-yo. "What's the matter?"

"Fuck off, Ross," she mutters.

"I'm serious. What's the matter?" You pause. "It's— it's not good for business if you're just going to mope in the middle of the aisle. You'll, uh, drive people off. ...You know."

She folds her arms up high. "Well, sorry, but it's fucking nothing, okay? Nothing's the matter. It's not about you, or— it's— it's nothing. Like I said. Fuck you."

For the love of— "Okay, look, ma'am, you can tell me or you can get out of here. Alright? One or the other. Shit or get off the pot. But I can't have you brooding where everybody can see, end deal."

"Don't 'ma'am' me," she hisses, but sags a bit. "This is going to be a big waste of your time."

"I don't care."

"It's not even original. I'm not fucking creative enough to come up with my own thoughts, Ross. You're going to be begging for me to shut the fuck up."

(1/4)

You're not sure she understands that you haven't spoken to another living soul since yesterday. (Your morning customer was not chatty.) "Try me."

Madrigal sighs deeply and— to your horror— shimmies her ass onto the memorial tabletop. She swings her legs back and forth. "I warned you, then. Get ready for some real patented deep thoughts. Some real fucking mind-bogglers. Stuff that'll leave you questioning the very fabric of reality—"

You know stalling when you hear it. "Get a move on."

"You're such a rat-bastard, Roscoe. Blowing hot and cold all the time." But Madrigal falls silent, and swings her legs, and knocks her ankles and her feet together, and drums in her lap, and generally appears at war with herself, and you've almost begun to believe it's a lost cause (and are doodling around with the yo-yo) when she opens her mouth. "I just think it's fucked that we're dead."

This is, credit to her, more sophomoric than you were expecting. "Yeah?"

"Not physically. I mean... maybe physically, but not physically. I mean effectively. Every single person who ever knew us assumes we're long fucking gone, and maybe they're grateful for that, and maybe they don't give a shit, and maybe they've moved on if they did give a shit. So there's that. But maybe they— maybe there's people who haven't moved on. Maybe there's people out there— up there— maybe they're still mourning you. How would we fucking know, right? Maybe they're torn up to pieces about you, maybe they have a cute little shrine going. Like this!" She rattles the memorial sign. "Just like this, but it's for you and me, Roscoe, and we're not dead. Not recognizably dead, still kicking, and we're having a grand old time down here, you and me, but they'll never know that. They'll never know that. To them we're dead. To them we're—" The memorial sign again. Some of the pasted-on letters flap around. You wince.

She doesn't say anything more after that, so you figure it's your time to offer words of wisdom. (Thank god it's an easy topic.) "I mean, yeah, but... that's how it is. After you're here long enough, you can kind of guarantee that they've... that you're not worrying anybody any longer. People are pretty resilient."

You earn a fierce look. (Wrong answer?) "So all I need to do is fart around here until everybody up there forgets about me? Cool stuff, Roscoe."

You shrug. "Yeah... kinda? After long enough, it's just not worth thinking about back then. That's how you destroy yourself. You have to live one day at a time, or—"

"You look like a fucking kid, Ross. How old were you when you— you know?" She pauses "And how'd it go down? Remind me."

You walked into this. "...Sixteen." A lashing wind. A grey day. The smell of rotten wood. Voices: "I dare you to make it up there." "Hey! He dared—" "It was an accident. I was being an idiot."

(2/4)

"An accident? At sixteen? Newsflash, they're still mourning you. Doesn't matter how long it's been. They've probably named a fucking charity after you, or something." Madrigal scoffs darkly. "See, and you earned your charity. You died with a clean fucking conscience. You know, a lot of people, they don't get that. You know I was executed?"

From the scar, you figured as much. "Sure."

"Yeah. And not for no reason, you know. Sometimes they getcha on trumped-up charges? Mine weren't trumped-up. I didn't have a lot of friends left up there. I hadn't spoken to any member of my family for— shit— probably five years. Maybe longer. I think I expected to die and stay dead, Ross." She spreads her hands. "So at the time I didn't mind too much that I'd be remembered by my folks as a gigantic rancid cunt. I thought that sounded pretty great, actually."

"...Yeah?"

"Yeah, I sure did. And it's too fucking bad I'm still here, isn't it? Since you can't have second thoughts when you're dead. You can't want anything when you're dead. Isn't being dead so fucking easy?" Well, she's not downcast any longer. So that's something.. "They have excuses. You and me— we just get to live with what we've done, or haven't. We get to wallow in it. Can't fucking change anything, of course, can't meaningfully— can't— you know what the real kick in the teeth is? Guess."

"I don't think I can..." you say tactfully.

"They still mourn you, Roscoe. Your folks. After you were a thief and a liar and a fucking cunt to them for years and years, after they hadn't seen you in— they set up a little adorable shrine for you and they put adorable flowers in and candles in and shitty years-old pictures of you in so people can coo and go 'isn't that so fucking sad she died'— you died—" One of your better customers is crumbling to bits in front of you. "And it's all because they fucking loved you, you stupid bitch! They loved you! And you took it for granted, and now it's gone and you're dead and there's not actually a single thing you or anybody can do about it anymore. It's over, Ross, and all I— all you get to do is take it a day at a fucking time. Isn't that swell?"

You are so lucky nobody else has come in. You are so lucky Madrigal Fitzpatrick hasn't started sobbing— she hasn't shed a tear, actually, if anything has moved further and further away from the possibility of it, until her voice was dry like a packet of silica is dry. You'd also like to mentally note that the word 'you' was doing a shit-ton of heavy lifting in that last soliloquy (a word you definitely picked up from Kerry White).

"Sorry," you say.

(3/4)

She snorts, seems abruptly to recompose: all her oozing bits vacuumed up, and the lid slammed shut on them. "I told you it wasn't your problem, Ross. Still isn't. What's the best row for gifts?"

"Uh... it depends on what you're...?"

"I'll just give everything a scan. Thanks for the tips," Madrigal Fitzpatrick says, and hops down from the memorial table, and takes off down an aisle.

- - - - -

>[SAME TIME]
>[SAME PLACE]

You are now (briefly) MADRIGAL FITZPATRICK.

Well, that was a fucking embarrassment! Holy shit, what a nightmare— maybe literally? You're sure you've had nightmares about this exact situation before, even if you can't remember them. This could be a nightmare, which would actually neatly explain why you are hunting down a gift for your dislikable acquaintance Charlotte Fawkins. Dream logic, you know. Doesn't have to make any damn sense.

Anyways, you're currently hunting down a gift for Charlotte Fawkins. What are you getting her?

>[A1] Something crappy. Send a message. You're going to get out in front of the snide remarks before they even begin.
>[A2] Something generic. Enough to plausibly pass for an apology, but not enough to indicate you put any thought into it. Perfect.
>[A3] Something really good and expensive. Why would you do this? You'd have to be under the influence of something to even consider it.
>[A4] Write-in.

>[B] What are you getting her specifically? The general store carries most categories of items, but rarely anything hyper-specific or very hard to find. (Write-in. Optional. If not chosen, I'll pick something myself based on the [A] vote.)
At this rate I probably should've just run the actual thread. Next update shorter(??).

>>5801000
>[A1] Something crappy. Send a message. You're going to get out in front of the snide remarks before they even begin.

>>5801000
>>[A1] Something crappy. Send a message. You're going to get out in front of the snide remarks before they even begin.

Checked.

>>5801000
>A2

Nice trips!
Also you know what the Drowned setting needs? Underwater therapists. Feel like that would solve a lot of problems.

>>5801000
A2] Something generic. Enough to plausibly pass for an apology, but not enough to indicate you put any thought into it. Perfect.

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>5801239
>>5801267
>[A1]

>>5801312
>>5801545
>[A2]

Flipping. Surprised nobody wanted to min-max for Charlotte's benefit, but I respect it.

>[A1]
Kek. Writing.

>>5801312
>Underwater therapists. Feel like that would solve a lot of problems.
>Implying Madrigal would ever consensually speak to a therapist
Who do you think she is, some kind of pussy? Alas, I think the only significantly troubled character who'd be willing to undergo therapy is Monty, who in an alternate reality is definitely on 50 mg of Prozac.

>>5801874
Too OOC to minmax
Also, a crappy item to get ahead of the snide remarks? Crappy gifts prompt snide remarks. Madrigal has no idea what hell of backhanded comments she's going to be plunged into.

>>5801935
>Too OOC to minmax
I wouldn't have provided the option if I didn't have a good "IC" explanation in mind... reread the option wording :^)

>Also, a crappy item to get ahead of the snide remarks? Crappy gifts prompt snide remarks. Madrigal has no idea what hell of backhanded comments she's going to be plunged into.
Other way around. Madrigal's concerned that too good or thoughtful of a gift will cause Charlotte to make snide remarks about Madrigal being nice, wanting to be friends, being "interested" in her, or so on. She doesn't particularly care if Charlotte gets the impression that Madrigal's being an asshole, since that's basically the status quo anyways.

File: general store.jpg (312 KB, 1600x1200)

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>Bargain bin

You wander idly down the aisle, running your thumb along the wooden shelf in the hopes something will leap out to you. You're roughly in the 'comestibles' section, but Roscoe's organization tends toward the free-associative, so there's also spoons and knives and nets and hunting gear. This kind of thing never would've flown back at home, where your dad ran a tight ship. But that's what a lack of competition gets you, you guess.

You really shouldn't be too hard on this place, though, since it is the only game in town— you don't count, you source things bespoke— and it's well-kempt and relatively well-supplied, all considered. And cheap. You've tried to subtly advise poor Ross on the concept of 'profit margins' before, but he doesn't seem to grasp it. That, and the value of branding. 15 years, he says, and he hasn't slapped any kind of name on it? Even for shorthand? You've brought that up less subtly, and the guy tells you he doesn't need one. "There's only one general store." Fucker. Maybe he looks a little how Ashley did, but Ash had a healthy respect for the directives of the market, not a fucking devil-may-care— ow!

Ow. Shit. That is a splinter lodged in your thumb. And that is maybe a sign that— that all of this has gone way too far. You already barfed all your lousy feelings up once; are you planning on repeating that stunt? Is it a sound and sane idea to go wandering around a little store and stirring up memories? Obviously not. You need to get something for Charlotte and get the fuck out into the sunshine. Make sure Pat hasn't started experimenting on anyone. (You thought it'd be okay to leave her unchaperoned, but frankly who knows.)

So you're back to "what to get," but you have a better answer this time: the cheapest thing you lay your eyes on. Fuck this nightmare. If it can't put in the effort to conjure up actual ghosts or monsters or hallucinations of your parents, you're not going to be putting in any, either. You stop where you are, scan 360 degrees, and spot a bin of ratty-looking socks (ALSO USEFUL POUCHES, SCRUBBERS, PROTECTIVE COVERS, says the label). Bingo.

-----

You are ROSCOE PRATER. Your only customer has tossed a pair of socks onto the counter.

"...Is that for you?" you say carefully.

"Nope." Madrigal doesn't seem to catch your meaning. "For a gift. Pretty fucking snazzy, huh?"

Maybe you would've said something more if she hadn't spilled her guts out over the floor five minutes ago. Maybe. But right now, it's just in poor taste. "Sure is. Hope they enjoy it. That'll be—"

She tosses a big rock onto the counter. "That enough?"

"...Sure will." (That much chit could buy ten pairs of socks. At least.) "You're sure you don't want—?"

(1/2)

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"Keep the change, buddy." She hesitates, gripping the edge of the counter, then takes the socks. "One day at a time, huh? Make it a nice one."

Then she's gone, out the door, the bell jingling. You sit back and exhale, then, thinking better of it, reach over and grab the rock. It's warm in your hand. Your palm flushes around it.

The bell jingles again.

>Who's entered the store?

>[1] Oh, great. That's the Wind Court honcho there. And that's... uh... that's a lot of Courtiers behind him. More than you remembered there being in town. What now?
>[2] A big guy in a big suit and shiny sunglasses and shoes and teeth. Not one of your regulars, but... do you recognize him? Isn't he from Headspace?
>[3] Somebody normal, thank god. That's Verna, self-appointed spokeswoman for all the new squatters in town. She looks more chipper than usual.

>>5802010
>[1] Oh, great. That's the Wind Court honcho there. And that's... uh... that's a lot of Courtiers behind him. More than you remembered there being in town. What now?

>>5802010
>1
Ready for our interrogation

>>5802010
>[1] Oh, great. That's the Wind Court honcho there. And that's... uh... that's a lot of Courtiers behind him. More than you remembered there being in town. What now?

>>5802062
>>5802284
>>5802455
>[1]

Writing.

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>Surprise inspection

No, yeah, that's about 10 Courtiers. And their boss, you think— the bald guy, the one with some kind of nickname. Happy? Funny? Lucky. That sounds right. Lucky.

Maybe he's Lucky, but you sure aren't: you can't think of a single good reason for a squad of Wind Court spitwads to jangle into your store. Fact is, you shouldn't be their target. You're as "natural" as they come, a dead-average human male, gainfully employed and relatively sane, without a whiff of interest in religion, drugs, body-modding, or pins that put houses in your head— and you don't sell anything along those lines, either, unless something's slipped past you. So are they barking up the wrong tree? Or do they have other plans?

Lucky jabs three fingers at your shelving, and the Courtiers fan out. (You didn't even know there were ten Courtiers in the Landing. You thought it was four or five. Have reinforcements come in?) For his part, Lucky sidles up to the counter, all close-lipped smiles.

"Morning, Mr. Prater," he says. "How are things going for you?"

This is really a banner day for your own self-control, because you'd like to tell him to get to the point, and maybe shove the forthcoming point up his ass. (There is no good reason for 10 Courtiers to be here. None.) Instead, you maintain the most neutral expression you're capable of. "Just fine, sir. What can I do for you?"

Does Lucky read insolence into your 'sir'? He should, but if he does, he hardly shows it— if anything, cranks the smarminess up a notch. "Kind of you to ask, Mr. Prater. We're here about an awareness campaign of sorts. Have you heard there may be a dangerous cult operating in this geographical area?"

Have you heard? Like that hasn't been the dominant topic of gossip for the last two weeks? Like some cheeky villain didn't paint the Nothing with spirals the other day? Like that isn't most people's going theory for the murders? Lucky here's a real sharp tool. "Really? You don't say."

Lucky reaches into his jacket and pushes over to you a clearly hand-drawn, hand-written flyer. (Is that why they needed reinforcements? To mass-produce these?) You gaze down at it.

"IS YOUR NEIGHBOR A CULTIST?
Watch for these six signs:
- SPIRAL ICONOGRAPHY
- TRAVELING AT NIGHT
- UNEXPLAINED INJURIES
- ODD SPEECH PATTERNS
- FIXATION ON DIRT OR DIGGING
- TALK OF IMPENDING DOOM
If you SEE something, SAY something!
The WIND COURT is here to help you any time."

"All that, huh?" you say.

"These are basic tells. Naturally, if you happen to uncover more explicit evidence, come to us immediately."

You curl the corner of the flyer with your finger. "Like?"

"You'd know it if you saw it, Mr. Prater. Unnatural strength or agility. Unnatural means of persuasion. Inhuman body parts. Altered states of mind. Unusual relationships with snakes or snake-like creatures. Worms."

(1/3?)

He says the last with special malice. You clear your throat. "That's pretty—"

"If you find this fantastical, don't. I can assure you firsthand that these are real and current symptoms of individuals in this region. Some have already been identified through lengthy investigations, but cults breed. There's bound to be many more lurking in our midst."

You have no love for the Wind Court, but this is kind of their schtick— you heard of them long before they moved in here. So you have no real reason to doubt him here. But still... why would they bring the entire squadron here? "You don't think I'm involved, do you?"

"Of course not, Mr. Prater. This is purely for awareness. You aren't our first stop, and you won't be our last." Lucky tilts his head. "Should I think you're involved?"

Fuck. "No! I—"

The Courtiers are emerging from the aisles. One of them slinks up to Lucky and whispers something, interrupting you. (Figures.) Lucky nods curtly, waves a hand, and turns back to you. "It seems a large proportion of your merchandise is unnatural in origin."

"I'm sorry?" you say.

"These items were not crafted with human hands, Mr. Prater, from raw material. Rather, they were..." Lucky scowls. "...'conjured.' From pure thought. Can such a thing be called natural to this world?"

"Uh..." Does it matter? Clearly the laws of nature (or whatever) make it possible down here, so it seems like it should count. Plus, screw "possible": made-up stuff is about all that makes life worth living down here. If the Wind Court had their way, you'd all be building log cabins and spearing raw eel to eat.

"No. Of course not. Human beings weren't created to live in a realm of delusion. Stocking unnatural merchandise promotes unhealthiness and instability among your neighbors. This is why your next-door neighbor only stocks real spirits."

That's what Jacques claims, but you have your doubts. Barrels of booze aren't exactly getting tossed off the ol' Pillar on a daily basis, and him and the wife brewing it themselves, while true, can't possibly produce enough to whet the insatiable throats of Lindew's Landing and the camp combined. Maybe the guy adulterates his real drink with the fake stuff, or maybe he's got some crazy cult runes on the taps that make the barrels bottomless. Who knows. You're not ratting him out to the fucking Wind Court, though. "Look, bud, you've got a big talk, but—"

"The most constructive thing to do," Lucky says stiffly, "would be to trash the current problematic items and carry on with your real stock. The Wind Court would be happy to dispose of it for you. You're a very young man, so it's completely understandable you're unfamiliar with—"

You pick up your "I AM 31" sign and display it in his face.

(2/3)

"..." Lucky pushes the sign to the side. "Yes. Well, we do acknowledge it could cause you to lose revenue to destroy your stock. If you're unwilling to do so at this point, we think it's reasonable for you to take the minor step of labeling your merchandise so shoppers can easily discriminate between the classes of items. As it is, you seem to have them mixed together. Then future deliveries of product could be restricted to real objects, yes? For the health and safety of everybody."

He's not threatening you... exactly. But boy, is he condescending. And boy, that's a lot of Courtiers hovering behind him.

>[1] That's it. Tell Lucky to shove his health and safety where the sun doesn't shine.
>[2] Tell him you'll label your stock if it'll get him out of your face, but go no further. You need something to do, anyways.
>[3] Tell him you'll buy real stuff from now on, then lie in the future if they ever come back to check. It's not like you're getting any shipments at all right now, anyways.
>[4] Write-in.

>>5802897
>[3] Tell him you'll buy real stuff from now on, then lie in the future if they ever come back to check. It's not like you're getting any shipments at all right now, anyways.

>>5802897
>2
How does he even know though? A special wind court method? If so how are we gonna be able to tell the difference?

>>5802897
>[2] Tell him you'll label your stock if it'll get him out of your face, but go no further. You need something to do, anyways.

>>5802897
>>[2] Tell him you'll label your stock if it'll get him out of your face, but go no further. You need something to do, anyways.

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>>5803287
>>5803482
>>5803734
>[2]

>>5802923
>[3]

Called and writing.

>>5803287
>How does he even know though? A special wind court method? If so how are we gonna be able to tell the difference?
Charlotte has previously narrated that she can tell the difference by touch: unreal objects tend to be unusually "slick" or "sheeny." It's undoubtedly subtle, though, if it's a real difference at all, and the Wind Court is probably using some other method since they went through the store so fast. As for how Roscoe does it: does that look like Lucky's problem? lol lmao

File: lucky - @abstractrights.jpg (1.08 MB, 5000x5000)

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>Compromise

Oh, to tell them all to shove it... but what then? More inspections? A guard posted outside your door, 'just in case'? A few more steps along that line and then your whole place burns to the ground. By accident, of course. He's not threatening you. But you give a self-important spitwad a match, and a lot of things start to look like a tinder pile.

This is all what Lucky wants you to think, of course, and that's why he brought nine other toughs with him. You're not particularly happy about conceding anything here. But you didn't make it fifteen years underwater by taking dumb risks, and you're not starting now. "I can see about some labels, sure."

"Wonderful. And the shipments?"

"They're on a delay right now. I'd have to see what's possible." All true.

"We appreciate you taking it under consideration. Thank you for helping keep this region safe." Lucky extends his hand, and after a moment you grab and shake it. "We'll be on our way. Pin the flyer up, will you? It's pertinent to everybody."

In for a penny, in for a pound. "Will do."

"Good man." Lucky flashes a smile and, with a wave of his hand, ushers his pack of clowns out the door after them. You spot a couple shamefacedly putting stock back on the shelves— were they planning to buy it? Or shoplift? It doesn't matter, you guess. The door jingles shut again.

Silence. Finally. You know you were pining for company just a little while earlier, but after those two back-to-back you'd be happy closing up shop for the day. Or week. (You You need to get a head start on that labeling, after all.) For now, though, all you can do is sit back in your chair and stare up at the ceiling.

How do you live down here? Madrigal was right. One day at a time.

(1/2)

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-----

A weak and ordinary and insignificant little creature. Contemptous. Paltry. YOU wasted a speck of infinity on this? For what purpose? To torture YOUrself? To rub salt in YOUr wounds? 'One day at a time'— an incomprehensible maxim. YOU are all days. YOU are all times. In YOUr view, that little creature is hatched and drowned and obliterated continously, sinuously, simultaneously: a self-loop, a pathetic death-spiral. The mites on YOUr back live their 'days at a time' for the sole purpose of dying. YOU can learn nothing from such little—

YOU have learned nothing. YOU can learn nothing. YOU are self-contained and self-sustaining and utterly impervious to outside forces and YOU cannot escape YOUr nature: YOU eat YOUrself. This is not to be celebrated or pitied. It is the reality of it. It is reality itself. So YOU misunderstand: you have nothing to teach, or to offer. The time for offers has passed. You are only trying, for now, to live.

(You wish you could be weak and ordinary and insignificant. You wish days held meaning.)

There is nothing, and there is YOU. There is you and the lifeless deathless void and the creatures, the people, on YOUr back and you are all that makes them live. Do YOU realize that? That their creators have succumbed to the death-spiral, and the guardianship has transferred? They worship YOU now. Most of them. There are a few stragglers...

-----

>[YEARS PRIOR]
>[OUT WEST]

Your name is ARLEDGE GRAVES. In the eyes of the Wind Court, you are a pagan and a practitioner of the dangerous and unnatural— otherwise known as a "magician."

Thus it's fairly unfortunate for you that you've been caught by the Wind Court, who've hauled you off to their western base of power, the Eyrie. It is doubly unfortunate that they have a vested interest in keeping you here. What were you doing?

>[1] Investigating possible cult influence in the ranks of the Wind Court
>[2] Tracking down the Second Crown, a powerful relic that the Wind Court has an interest in
>[3] Sabotaging a secretive Wind Court ritual
>[4] Write-in? (Subject to veto.)

>>5803987
>[2] Tracking down the Second Crown, a powerful relic that the Wind Court has an interest in

>>5803987
>[2] Tracking down the Second Crown, a powerful relic that the Wind Court has an interest in
Aw shit Arledge up in this motherfucker

>>5803987
>3
I wanna know what kind of rituals the wind court would be doing. I thought they were strictly anti ritual.

>>5803987
>[2] Tracking down the Second Crown, a powerful relic that the Wind Court has an interest in

>>5804013
>>5804286
>>5804475
>[2]

>>5804365
>[3]

Called for [2] and writing.

>>5804365
Mysterious, isn't it!

File: arledge bust.png (1.06 MB, 1053x956)

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>The Crown

You had heard stories of the Second Crown before, but it really was the stuff of stories— too good to be true. If it existed at all, it had to be lost, and if it was lost, it had to be somewhere nobody had ever looked. If it was found, much less used, the world would know. And what were the odds of it being lost so thoroughly, versus the odds it was a old wives' tale?

That was your thought process just a few weeks back. Or, no. In truth you'd forgotten about the thing in toto, and a few weeks back happened to be reminded. Suffice it to say you had an encounter with a handful of Courtiers, as happens periodically, and they let slip some information you thought sounded relevant to your interests, and one thing led to another. To you, in the Eyrie, in a sauna, in chains.

"Enjoying the hotbox, Mr. Graves?"

"Hello, Dib." He calls it a "hotbox"— they all do— but it's a sauna in effect, a cramped little room with clever corridors surrounding it. They bank a raging fire in the corridors, which boils the water, which floods your room with steam hot enough to torture (but not kill). This is all in addition to fire's usual reality-amplification, which is well in effect. You have water up your nose and down your throat. You could be having a better day. "Am I to say 'we meet again'?"

Dib Blaine smiles tersely and clunks the door shut before more steam can escape. He doesn't seem dressed for the hotbox— short sleeves, no facial protection to speak of— but none of the Courtiers have been. They inure themselves somehow. "If you like. I wish we kept meeting under better circumstances, Mr. Graves, but it does always seem to end up this way. You fail to learn your lesson."

"You keep releasing me," you say.

"You keep escaping."

"I consider that the same thing. Is there an alternative, Dib?" You twist a bit in your manacles. "I don't see my head rolling off my shoulders yet. When is that happening?"

Dib laces his hands behind his back. "It is not the policy of the Wind Court to execute nonviolent offenders. We are not savages." Says his tone: unfortunately.

"Of course not. That's why I am in an hot room, chained up—"

"You are a repeat nonviolent offender."

"—and stripped down to the skivvies? Was the stripping required, Dib?"

Dib pauses for a long time. "It's standard policy for the hot rooms, Mr. Graves, if that's what you were asking. You were not given special treatment. It allows for enhanced contact of the steam to bare skin."

"You would think they would put more clothes on you," you say. "So you become hotter."

"I didn't write this policy, Mr. Graves."

"But you enforce it?"

"I act within my duties. But it's not as if the idea is meritless." Dib curls his lip. "It does expose the truth of your mutated form."

(1/2)

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'Mutated' is a classic Court exaggeration: it's not as though you're sprouting feathers. It is a fact, though, that hundreds of sacred transformations have left their mark, rendering your proportions a touch uncanny around the torso— like you were squeezed from a tube. There's the constellations of track marks up and down your arms and neck as well. And the fact that you're lobster-red and shiny from the steam. Multiple options, now that you think on it.

Only one response, though. "Have you been spending a lot of time examining my mutated form, Dib?"

He hasn't. His eyes haven't slid lower than your neck. This is besides the point.

"...Er..." says Dib. This is the point. "...I... for a person of interest, there is a necessary amount of..."

He can't outright say 'no,' because that would suggest his 'mutated' comment was baseless. He certainly has no sound way to say 'yes.' If you're to be strung up here like a lacquered duck, you intend to string Dib up here with you. "I'm a person of interest?"

Dib folds his arms. "Yes."

"Are you interested in me, Mr. Blaine?"

You can count this pause off in your head. "..Yes, in a professional—"

"I meant sexually," you say.

Eight bless him. It's hard for Dib to redden with his kind of complexion, but he manages it, and it's very nearly adorable. Not that you have any passion toward jumping his particular bones— he is by definition incompatible— and not that you're much of a seducer overall. You've been told much the opposite. But Dib's not discriminatory, and his buttons are obvious and easily pressed.

He's folded his arms now, presumably to look in-control. "I am a married man, Mr. Graves. You forget your current position. Would you like the bellows worked again?"

It's not nearly as hot in here as it was earlier: he's informing you that he can change that. Not that it matters much. "You realize I've already said all I know? I have nothing to hide."

"Very likely."

"What precisely would I be hiding? I work for nobody. Nobody tipped me off. I have no motive except my own interest in the Court's machinations, which is no crime. My personal habits are irrelevant to the matter, regardless of whether the Court approves or not—"

"Our machinations?" Dib squeezes his arm. "You make it out as if we're some great villains, Mr. Graves. Everything we do is for the good of humanity."

You should tread carefully. He can do real damage to you, if pushed.

>[1] Tell Dib that *he* might have a sincere belief in the Wind Court's stated goals, but that doesn't ensure every one of his ilk does. Corruption takes root fast.
>[2] Ask Dib how the Wind Court intends to use the Crown for the good of humanity.
>[3] Tell Dib that 'humanity' contains quite a lot of the unnatural.
>[4] Tell Dib that the bespoke torture chambers don't do a lot for their public image.
>[4] Write-in.

>>5804981
>[2] Ask Dib how the Wind Court intends to use the Crown for the good of humanity.

>>5804981
>[4] Tell Dib that the bespoke torture chambers don't do a lot for their public image.
>[4] Write-in - If they do nothing but good, why are they bothered by you poking around in their business? Shouldn't they have nothing to hide?

>>5804981
>[2] Ask Dib how the Wind Court intends to use the Crown for the good of humanity.

>>5804981
>[2] Ask Dib how the Wind Court intends to use the Crown for the good of humanity.

>>5804981
>[3] Tell Dib that 'humanity' contains quite a lot of the unnatural.
>[4] Tell Dib that the bespoke torture chambers don't do a lot for their public image.
>[4] Write In: Bring up the fact that the torture chambers are also quite unnatural; nature doesn’t have much use out of torture.

>>5804985
>>5805486
>>5805568
Seems rather counterproductive to try and glean information from our captor about something he knows we are/were looking for. I imagine he’s smart enough not to say anything useful about it; this feels like a wasted option.

>>5804985
>>5805486
>>5805568
>[2]

>>5805097
>>5805648
>[4]

>>5805648
>>5805097
>[5]

Sorry for the numbering mix-up with the write-in option. Bathic sleepy.

In other news, calling for... well... certainly [2] and the write-ins, but I'll try to throw [4] in as well. We'll see if I can keep this short.

Writing.

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>No u

You remain silent for a good while, pushing your swollen tongue around your mouth. The obvious retort here is too obvious, it feels. Or maybe just obvious enough. Throughout your various (unwilling) encounters, Dib has displayed a tendency toward the myopic. "Including the torture chambers?"

"Excuse me?"

"The torture chambers are for the good of humanity?"

"The Wind Court," Dib says (a little huffily), "does not possess 'torture chambers.' As a crucial aspect of our mission, we have spent a hundred years building, with our own hands, state-of-the-art containment rooms for violent criminals and offenders of the natural order. If you mean to ask whether the containment rooms are for the good of humanity, the answer is patently 'yes'."

The steam curls around you. If you so chose, you could proceed to have a conversation with Dib about the specifications of 'torture' vs. 'containment,' which one was appropriate to subject on a nonviolent offender, how stringing up a man spreadeagle in a pair of briefs was likely not appropriate, and so on. It could even be productive, in the sense that anything distracting Dib from turning up the heat would be productive. But he says 'containment rooms' like he's saying what he had for lunch: without doubt, guilt, or indeed thought. And certainly without irony. A wall would be a better conversationalist.

And yet you try. "That's well and good, but given the circumstances I find myself in— not to mention the way the Court treats a great deal of humanity—"

"The Wind Court accepts with open arms any individual who's willing to renounce or be treated for their abnormalities, Mr. Graves. We reject those who, like yourself, revel in the unnatural."

Maybe you should speak at the wall and see how long it takes for Dib to notice. "We all know containment rooms are often found in nature."

"You are well aware that containment rooms abide by the laws of nature, so I won't dignify that with a response. Mr. Graves." Dib slides two things from his belt: a leather pouch, and an espantoon. "We've wasted enough time on idle chitchat. Would you like to do this the easy way or the difficult way?"

You aren't usually so voluble. You weren't with the earlier visitors. It's probably the pain. "I don't know. Which is for the good of humanity?"

Dib twirls the espantoon by its strap. "I'm hearing 'difficult way.'"

"I imagine the Court wants the Second Crown for the good of humanity?"

"Of course. Now—"

No doubt, guilt, or irony. No thought. Dib Blaine, ever the loyal soldier. "That's why I was arrested? Because the plans for the Crown were too upstanding to be released to the public."

"I will assume you're not feigning idiocy this once, Mr. Graves, and I will point out to you that you presume your flagrant offenses to be morally just. And yet you skulk around society like a mangy dog. What are we to make of that?"

You maintain a silence.

(1/2)

"Good." Dib points the espantoon. "Easy or difficult, Mr. Graves, or I'll select for you."

"If the Wind Court wants the Crown for the good of humanity, it is deluded, or it is lying to you. You and the rest of the rank and file. Which one is it?"

"Difficult?"

"I couldn't be more serious about this." You jostle in your manacles. "Listen to me. Do you know what the Crown does?"

"Of course." Dib mimes some test-swings.

"No, I don't think you do. Do you think it grants unlimited power? The Wind Court is planning to reshape the entire world in its image? Like in a children's story, Dib?"

"You know nothing more about it than we do—" Dib has dipped into a scowl. "—and almost certainly less. Watch your mouth fast."

"I haven't seen it. You haven't seen it. You have heard stories. I have heard stories— different stories. And from more credible sources. If the thing exists at all, which the Court appears set on, and if it's ever located, which the Court appears to believe possible, it must be destroyed immediately. No one must lay hands on it."

"I will pretend I didn't hear this. I will pretend I heard 'Difficult.'"

"You don't understand." He doesn't. Not at all. You don't know why you're even attempting, except that you're cornered. "The Crown is supposed to cause the end of the w—"

CRACK! A blur of motion in the whirl of steam— hot pain— hot blood in your mouth. Your own. You're familiar with the taste. The chains binding you jangle from the force of the blow. Dib withdraws the espantoon.

"A little taste of 'Difficult,'" he says nonchalantly. "Should we continue, Mr. Graves? Or, oh, I haven't introduced 'Easy'—"

He opens the leather pouch and holds it up to your bleary eyes. It contains a waterproofed bundle of green powder. "—where all you have to do is talk, Mr. Graves. You seem to be enjoying that today. Though with your jaw..."

It's swelling up already. You feel your skin stretched red around it.

"...I don't know. Maybe you'd just like to get things over with?" Dib sounds self-amused. "Call it 'Truth or Dare.'"

>[A1] Truth. The green powder is made from scrapings off a rare scleractinian coral; inhale it and you'll have to tell Dib anything and everything he could possibly want to know, plus plenty he doesn't. Not ideal.
>[A2] Dare. Let him whale on you until he gets bored. You won't die, and you can heal everything off as soon as you're out of your cell. But gods, won't it hurt in the moment.

>[B1] Attempt to tell Lucky more about the Crown's dangers. Maybe you can win him over. But more likely, he'll just run you harder.
>[B2] Shut up.

>[C] Write-in.

>>5805902
>C
>Make as if you'll take the powder, but when he brings it to your face blow it all off his hand with an obviously fake sneeze. "My bad"

>>5805902
>>5806028
+1 to this!

It would be funny if we seemingly accepted the powder by staying silent [B2] and when he walks up, fake sneeze the powder, then go “My bad. I choose truth by the way,” with the dumbest fucking smile possible. Then, like a retard, go, “Where’d all the powder go?”

>>5806028
>>5806069
My bad for not making this clear, but Lucky intends to burn the powder in the fires on the other sides of the wall, effectively spiking the steam with it. Which does mean he'd be breathing it in too, though judging by his lack of facial protection he probably imagines himself immunized to it. He may or may not be. Please revote if you can.

>>5805902
Dang
Despite that being a flavored A2, I'll change to
>A1
Maybe we can speechcraft him into not asking too many questions, he seems easy to sidetrack.

Although if he doesn't need us to inhale it, why bother giving us a choice when he could just throw it in the fire? Something to ask him as a sidetracking tactic maybe.

>>5806209
He’s going to do [A1] anyhow, but

>[A2] Dare. Let him whale on you until he gets bored. You won't die, and you can heal everything off as soon as you're out of your cell. But gods, won't it hurt in the moment.

Accuse him of getting off to this, call him a sadist. Anything to distract this bastard from asking us important questions

>>5805902
>[A2] Dare. Let him whale on you until he gets bored. You won't die, and you can heal everything off as soon as you're out of your cell. But gods, won't it hurt in the moment.

>>5805902
>>[A2] Dare. Let him whale on you until he gets bored. You won't die, and you can heal everything off as soon as you're out of your cell. But gods, won't it hurt in the moment.

>>5806582
>>5806844
>>5806276
>[A2]

>>5806254
>[A1]

>Nobody voted for any [B]s for some reason? Ok lol

Called for getting beat up and writing shortly. I have an early morning and still probably have to study for something, so there's decent odds I may not finish. Sorry in advance if this is the case.

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>Ow

"Truth or Dare"— like you're playing a game together. Maybe you are. Any other Courtier would've thrown that powder into the fire, no warning given, and shouted questions at you through the door. Or they would've come in with a face mask at the least. Your earlier visitors had on protective coats for the steam. But here's Dib in his undershirt.

Was he sent here? Or did he hear you'd been taken in, and show up under his own power? You really did tell the earlier Courtiers everything they asked about, and they seemed reasonably satisfied, or at least not angry. But they did leave you in the sauna, and they didn't tell you how you'd be released, or if you'd be released. You're sure they'd like to keep you here until you rot, if they could manage it. But how Dib factors in...

You see two reasons why he'd play a game with you. The first is that he's honorable, or thinks he is, and he'd see an unexpected doping as foul play— he wants your consent, however strained, before peeling your mind open. The second is that he really, really, really, out of the bottom of his heart, wants to hit you repeatedly with a big wooden stick. Except that's not in policy, so he's set this up so you'll have asked for it, if you ask for it.

Both are completely plausible. They are also not mutually exclusive. You suppose you're glad the Wind Court's chained Dib up in bureaucracy and moral codes, because you wouldn't like to meet him unaffiliated. He stands there a couple feet from you, watching your jaw drool unclotted blood, looking like you said self-amused. Maybe a little hungry.

That's fine. At least Dib has a clear motivator. And at least you know he's clean— his commitment to Wind Court tenets is too pure to be swayed. You doubt he'd ever believe your claims about the extent of Wyrm influence in the Court. (At most, he'd pin it on a scapegoat. Like that one woman.) You're certain he won't listen to a word about what they might want the Crown for. He's already stopped you from telling him about the stories you've heard about it. That it belonged to one of the men who murdered the Eight. That it was supposed to finish the job already started, but the Quick Sea in His dying wit swept it away, and the Under Sea in Her dying mystery sank it to parts unknown, and the Storm Sea in His dying fury made it impossible to send boats to fish it up. Until it was too late, and they all were dead, and most of Mankind was too. Thus the Crown was largely forgotten, and nothing came of it.

It's a pretty tale. Dib doesn't care. Even if he pried the words out of you himself, he wouldn't care— they'd be seditious rumors from a rogue magician, nothing greater. You'd be wasting your breath, if you can speak much of all. You haven't tried yet.

"Dare," you croak.

Not ideal, but functional. Watch Dib's eyes light up. This, too, is almost cute. "You're a very brave man, Mr. Graves."

Maybe. It's more that you like it when people get straight to the point.

(1/3)

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"A very brave man." He stows the powder pouch and swivels his shoulders, then finds a solid grip on the espantoon. "Let me know if you'd like to change your mind at any point. I'm sure we can work something out."

You clench your teeth, despite the shooting pain, so you won't bite your tongue off.

CRACK! Dib reels back and slams the espantoon into your shin, as if driving a stake. Your toes curl reflexively.

CRACK! Up higher, into your kneecap. Your leg spasms. The ankle manacle rattles.

(A sudden inhale.) No noise from the espantoon, because he's driven the butt of it into your stomach, two-handed, and is grinding it around in your scalded flesh. A noise from you, which was a mistake, because the corner of Dib's mouth lifts.

CRACK! Your hip—

CRACK! Your ribs—

CRACK! You decide to recuse yourself from the situation.

(CRACK!) This is the main way you tolerated the steam at its height, earlier on. You have discovered that it's analgesic to close your eyes and envision yourself—

(CRACK!) —buoyant in an invisible ocean, neither floating nor sinking, breathing steadily, the water the temperature of your skin—

(CRACK!) —where there is no pain or sensation, where having a body at all is immaterial, except to keep the blood inside. You feel a great peace there. It's there you can think clearly enough to recite the Intercession:

(CRACK!) Quick Sea grant me vigor, Flat Sea grant me patience;

(CRACK!) Shallow Sea grant me warmth, Under Sea grant me peace;

(CRACK!) Storm Sea grant me trust, Clear Sea grant me foresight;

(CRACK!) Green Sea grant me the beginning, Salt Sea grant me the end, and I will grant me to—

CRACK! There is a downside to recusing yourself from a situation currently ongoing. Dib has worked up a sweat, and has switched to his left hand. He has prowled all the way around you, ducking past the chains, striking fluidly (if at apparent random). He may be deep in his own form of meditation. You would call him a sadist if you didn't think he'd agree cheerfully— "there's no shame in it when it's creatures like you, Mr. Graves; no harm to anybody who didn't ask for it"— you should probably have asked him why he didn't ask you any questions, to maintain a faint pretense of interrogation. But you couldn't. You were floating in the darkness, so you didn't notice when your poor abandoned body sagged in its chains, and the darkness came to you.

(2/3)

—

Green Sea granted you the beginning. Salt Sea didn't hold up Her end of the fucking bargain. You are alive, and much worse off for it.

Limbs: intact. Head: intact. Jaw: swollen still. Tooth: spat out. Flesh: burned and bruised, almost as one uniform mass— you look like a spoiled fruit. Bones: Unclear. Blood: largely inside body, though possibly misplaced.

There is room for improvement. Not that nothing at all has improved: you are out of chains, and seem to have been carried to a rough cot. You are still mostly nude, which would explain the pile of folded clothing by the cell door. Not yours. Looks like Wind Court make (read: itchy).

You can make a guess from your injuries, but to confirm it, you reach behind you (ouch) and grasp at— grasp at— nothing. The water is unyielding. This little room must have crystal baked into its foundations, to impose reality so strongly. Clever. But this cuts off most of your possible avenues for escape.

You will escape, of course. It's not under debate. You will do it now or in a while, after your contusions have settled down a bit, but you will not be held here like a rat in a cage with no trial and for no crime. You merely have to think on it.

>How do you end up escaping?

>[1] The Courtiers took your kit, but they couldn't stop you from pre-shooting some choice blood. If you got seawater in your system, the strongest reality field couldn't prevent a sacred transformation, and from there you snuck out at your leisure.
>[2] The Eight are dead, their powers are diminished, and the odds of them waking to prayer is nil. Still, as a first resort, you tried it— and *something* responded.
>[3] You don't know. You can't explain it, or wouldn't like to. It just... happened.
>[4] Write-in?

>>5807130
>[1] The Courtiers took your kit, but they couldn't stop you from pre-shooting some choice blood. If you got seawater in your system, the strongest reality field couldn't prevent a sacred transformation, and from there you snuck out at your leisure.

>>5807130
>[1] The Courtiers took your kit, but they couldn't stop you from pre-shooting some choice blood. If you got seawater in your system, the strongest reality field couldn't prevent a sacred transformation, and from there you snuck out at your leisure.
Dat blood tho

>>5807130
>[1] The Courtiers took your kit, but they couldn't stop you from pre-shooting some choice blood. If you got seawater in your system, the strongest reality field couldn't prevent a sacred transformation, and from there you snuck out at your leisure.

Whatever this means

>>5807130
>>[1] The Courtiers took your kit, but they couldn't stop you from pre-shooting some choice blood. If you got seawater in your system, the strongest reality field couldn't prevent a sacred transformation, and from there you snuck out at your leisure.

>>5807134
>>5807344
>>5807416
>>5807659
>[1]

Writing.

>>5807416
>Whatever this means
People who read the original Drowned Quest might have some idea... or people who read Thread 30

Hi folks. I have ~750 words written, but it's getting very late (unfortunately IRL meant I had to start late...) and I have a quiz in the morning. I'm going to stop here and try to finish up tomorrow... though I'll be busy then too, so there's a small chance I won't have it done then. Early on Friday at the latest. Apologies, and thank you for your understanding.

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>Bloodplay

A good start might be to consider what you already have on hand. Wind Court-provided clothing: useless. A bare cot: useless. The door to your cell is barred tight, and you don't see any guard outside to bait over and knock out. (Not that that would be an easy task. Your body's so pulverized you can hardly sit up. Body: useless.) But your blood...

You had prepared for this eventuality, hadn't you? Had jabbed your thigh with the first thing you fumbled for— a blue vial. On its own, in small quantities, another creature's blood does nothing. It circulates until it's crowded out with fresh blood, and you're none the worse off for it. No, it's the second shot that makes the miracle. Seawater (godsblood) in a person's veins is a little miracle on its own, producing euphoria, wholeness, in concentration rapid healing. A restoration of sorts. But when it circulates through and finds, recognizes, another's blood...

The trouble here is not that your cell is highly real. (There is nothing unreal about a sacred transformation.) There is minor trouble in the fact that you took the blood so many hours ago— it will make the process painful and protracted. But the major trouble isn't anything so complex. It's that you have plenty of water, but no obvious way to get it in your blood. They took your syringes.

Consider what you have once more. Clothing: still useless. Body: you wouldn't like to claw yourself open. Cot: hmm. The base is wood, and not high-quality. Aha.

If a guard were to peer into your cell, they would see you huddled on your cot, Wind Court-approved shirt clenched between your teeth. If they investigated further, they'd catch you red-handed, a thumb-sized splinter jammed into a major vein. Blood's already clouding, but you're more concerned about what's entering the wound. A syringe delivers the payload direct. With this, you'll need to do a little persuasion. Withdraw the splinter...

Oh blood of Quick Sea, deliver me from this stagnant place. Enter this failing vessel and sweep it away from me.

...and watch, with no small satisfaction, a vortex form above the splinter-hole. When you say the ocean wants nothing but to help, you're called a lunatic. Or arrested. Well, to the doubters: find peace in ignorance. Bastards.

Already it's fizzing through you, relaxing muscles, slowing breathing, dampening the full-body throbbing. You throw the splinter away and lay down flat on the cot, resolving to appreciate it while it lasts— you try not to make a habit of taking seawater straight, except when necessary, but it's obvious how others get hooked. "Like a hug from God," you've heard it crudely said. But it isn't wrong.

It isn't what you're here for, though. Typically you'd already be in its throes— but as it is, you are made to wait, not unpleasantly, for the foreign blood to be recognized and understood. It is at this point highly dilute. It may require some light prompting.

(1/4?)

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Blood of Flat Sea, still my beating heart and paint my mind with smooth glaze; ready me...
Blood of Salt Sea, dry my bones and leech the fluids from my bonds; kill me...
Blood of Green Sea, tend inside me another useful self; grow me...
Blood of Quick Sea, He of Sudden Change, seek me out and know my heart, know my faith and need, know I have Changed and will Change again; transform me... now!

There! A pang in your gut. A pall of unease. Your blood snaps and crackles— your deep inhale bubbles. Your slackened muscles slacken more.

Two things are true about a change. The first is that, if done in good faith and with good enough technique, there is nothing unnatural or dangerous about it. The human body was mixed by the gods from dry red blood and white salt and clear water, and was left to dry in the sun to form an outer crust, but the inside remained wet, and that was by design. It was meant to be malleable— to adapt, to flex, even to take new shape. You are invoking a dormant process, but an innate and responsive one. You are not afraid of it.

The second true thing is that your body does not know this. You know it, and you have executed this without incident hundreds of times, but no amount of experience, logic, or raw belief can change what your body does know: that it is poisoned, and you are dying, and the appropriate reaction is pain and fear. Much of the pain is swallowed by the seawater. But the fear?

You are not afraid. Your body is afraid. The third true thing, more situational than the others, is that a larger change is an easier one. A gain in mass. Your body is mostly preserved, in those, merely swaddled in a blubber of godstuff. At the end it melts off, and you are still there. A smaller change is a loss of mass, and that means...

It occurs to you that you should get off the cot, so the mess will be more easily cleaned. There is a hard stone knot in your chest, but the rest of you is damp and uncooperative, and it's all you can do to flail off the edge and splash to the ground. You feel like rubber filled with quicksand. You feel like meat. The stone knot is twitching. Here is around the time people tend to lose their pride. You are not afraid. Your body is afraid. Your nerves are stabbing. Your blood crackles in your ears. The worst, technically, is yet to come—

And lo, it does. You experience it like an upwelling of nausea, but it's not the contents of your stomach that need evacuation. Your body lacks a better warning flag. Curled on the floor, you lift yourself enough to double over, then expel your own organs.

Okay. They might not be your organs. You are a magician, not a medical doctor, and the pink sludge isn't recognizable as any given thing. At this stage, it may just be clotted blood. But it is your body, following instructions, breaking itself down from the inside. You are becoming raw material.

(2/4?)

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In terms of pure physical terror, this is the peak. In your own opinion, the part just before is the peak, and everything from now on is steeply downhill. You find security in knowing that everything is over with. You have completed your part in this. Now your body must complete its.

You retch again, and begin to sense a hollowness. You could not stand if you tried. Every part of you is sagging and distending, sliding off the bone, and your bones themselves are bending, and when you feel your face begin to go you know the time has come. Your skull comes with it. Then: a loss of sensation.

Darkness. Weight. An alien scrabbling in the back of your head. You move parts of yourself, probing.

Blue blood. Which syringe was this? Is it the one you drew from... from... what was the thing's name? Buster?

That sounds correct. Some manner of crustacean, then. Or insect? You are a magician, not a veterinarian. The good news is that the scrabbling is all the instinct the little bugger has— that's the tradeoff for smaller changes, a harder process but a significantly easier wrangling after the fact. You grasp the scrabbling and yoke it tight to yourself.

Then you mobilize, the creature working its limbs on your behalf, and emerge from your mound of sloughed flesh. From this angle, the cell is vertiginous, its only escape— the barred window— a sheer cliff away. You pause and consult the creature.

It is unbothered. Your legs are sharp and hooked and your body is flat. You lever onto the door and pick your way up, finding purchase in imperfections and divots, and after another round of consideration you slide yourself vertically through the bars. You plop to the ground outside.

Though you are unsure of the precise layout of this compound, it ends up not mattering. A Courtier of kindly disposition spots you in a corridor, coos a bit, picks you up, and deposits you outdoors.

You are free. You will not bother going back for your belongings, which are replaceable. You will crawl to a safe location, and— when your blood begins to replenish, when your original nature makes itself known— you will shed your loosening skin and grow a new body around your heart. Everything, at least for then, will be alright.

-----

A pathetic insect exposes its true nature. It is caged and exposed. It is too cowardly to destroy its fellows, so it metamorphizes into a weak, inferior state and runs away. The progeny it devotes itself to is DEAD. Its mission is and will be and already was a FAILURE. There is nothing of value here.

Nothing is of any value to YOU.

Nothing is of any value to US, tapeworm. There is nothing besides US. There is nothing at all.

He did not fear his own death.

...

Oh, to fear anything else...

-----

(3/4)

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>[YEARS LATER]
>[HEADSPACE SENIOR EMPLOYEE HOUSING: POD #22]

Your name is RUDY L. DOHENY, and you are FUCKED. FUCKED. "Capital F-U-C-K-E-D" FUCKED. You spend 10 years at one company— well, trapped at one company— keeping your head down, keeping your nose to the grindstone, working your way up the ladder, earning yourself solo housing and comped meals and a shiny nameplate, and for what? For what? To be struck by FUCKING lightning? To be walking past a window and squashed by a grand FUCKING piano?

None of it is your fault. You can't think of any reason for it to be your fault. You do your security checks. You keep up with your pills. You don't associate with the crazies. So why is it you who gets FUCKED? And why the FUCK did you sic the Management on yourself?

It was a better idea at the time ('the time' being in the ballpark of 3 minutes ago). Way back then, you— you, Headspace Custom Project Lead Rudy FUCKING Doheny— were under attack from a- a- a- a thing, a malevolent presence, who STOLE your body and brain and was planning to steal your life, you thought, at the time. So you slipped into your M.A.N.S.E. before the presence could snuff you out and you radioed for help. So you could get FUCKING exorcised, or sedated, or... something.

You did not account for the possibility of the presence up and leaving, which it did just about exactly after you Over-And-Outed. So now you are here, in your pod, unpossessed, and there is blood all over your face, and on your bedspread (fuck!), and there's shards of mirror everywhere, and there is somebody coming to answer your call. Maybe not Management yet. But they'll be called, and then they are going to ask you questions, and then you and your comfortable life? They'll be FUCKED.

You probably have a minute or less before anybody shows up at your door. You can do one thing.

>[1] Stand outside so they don't kick your door down.
>[2] Wash your bloody face in the sink.
>[3] Try to recall details about the presence.
>[4] Primal scream into your pillow.
>[5] Write-in?

>>5808537
Surely they would not be so stupid as to end the life of their project lead or revoke things of his, especially when HE radioed for help for a situation he (I assume) neither started nor had control over. Why would we be fucked? I imagine this is my lack of knowledge of Drowned itself but it seems odd.

>[2] Wash your bloody face in the sink.
>[3] Try to recall details about the presence.

>>5808606
>You can do one thing

Also:
>Why would we be fucked?
Rudy is a paranoid guy, firstly, but secondly: his company (Headspace) is a dystopian nightmare. Employees sign a contract that keep them locked in the Headspace pocket dimension... forever, basically, are forced into a regime of pills and questionable dietary supplements, work on tight deadlines with few resources, and live in constant fear of "Upper Management," their mysterious maybe-inhuman bosses who tend to disappear anybody who looks at them funny. There's always new hires, after all... or maybe clones of the old hires. Hard to say.

tl;dr he's paranoid but probably rightly so

>>5808537
>[1] Stand outside so they don't kick your door down.

>>5808537
>[2] Wash your bloody face in the sink.
Lmao whoops sorry Rudy

>>5808606
>>5808612
Gotcha. Also, overselected.
>[2] Wash your bloody face in the sink.

>>5808537
>[2] Wash your bloody face in the sink.

>>5808537
>>[2] Wash your bloody face in the sink.

>>5808732
>[1]

>>5808964
>>5809309
>>5809506
>[2]

Writing.

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>Look presentable

Your face. That's another thing that'll be FUCKED, if it's not treated— you have blood in your eyes and glass in your forehead and your single lucky break is that there isn't glass in your eyes, and that you weren't wearing your glasses when it happened. Even then, it might scar. Or get infected. And it is absolutely going to drip blood over every single FUCKING surface if you don't get it cleaned up right this actual instant.

You lurch off your bed and scramble to the sink, which is as blood- and mirror-splattered as your face is. The mirror itself hangs at an odd angle, splintered. From where your forehead hit it. Because you were attempting to fight off your body being stolen. Now it's coming out of your pay, and a dozen pairs of your jittery eyes refract in it.

With the mirror's remains as a guide, you pluck out what larger shards you can, then run the tap and scrub the blood off. You look wet and disheveled now, instead of just plain disheveled. You don't own any bandages. You'll have to call in to Health for those (also out of the pay), or—

"SECURITY! OPEN UP!"

—or that. Hope they throw you a bone. You would walk over and open the door for them, but not two seconds afterwards the door flies open and slams against the wall, knocking your jacket off its hook. If that left a dent, it'll also come out of your pay. Fucking Security.

"HANDS UP NOW!"

Your hands were already up, but that doesn't stop two bulletproof-vested brainiacs from clomping into your pod and shoving a tranq gun in your face. The tap is still on. You're still clenching the towel.

"I'm Rudy," you say.

"Fat fucking chance, bozo! That's what he said you'd say!" The empty-handed security guy's walkie-talkie squeals, and he mutters into it. The one with the tranq gun carries on. "You think we were born yesterday? Get the fuck out of him. Now."

Is that what you said it'd say? Fuck. It probably was. "I'm Rudy, genius. It left a minute ago."

"Uh-huh. Rudy radioed in two minutes ago, and you expect us to believe, in the span of two minutes—"

You are so obscenely fucked. "I don't know what to tell you, okay?! I called it in, and then it left. That's how it happened. You don't understand how much I'd like to say otherwise, but—"

"Say something only Rudy would know," orders the walkie-talkie guy, but before you can make an attempt the tranq gun guy elbows him. "It knows everything he'd know, motherfucker. It's in his brain.

The absolute maximum of fucked you can be. Peak fucked. "Was in my brain."

"Shut up." Tranq gun guy rips the towel out of your hand and dashes it to the ground. "Why is the sink on? Why—"

(1/2)

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"He's bleeding," walkie-talkie notes cleverly.

"I was trying to stop it from getting in. It didn't work. Can I—" You twitch your eyes to the side. "Can I turn off the sink? Please?"

"Don't MOVE." Tranq gun elbows walkie-talkie, who scoots around and shuts the tap off. Thank god. "And stop talking. Get out of Rudy's body, or we'll—"

"What?"

"We'll do it the hard way." Tranq gun raises his tranq gun. "You'll be extracted. And it won't be pleasant for you or him, so why don't you do the right thing and—"

Transcendently fucked. Dimensionally fucked. Fucked in all timelines. "Extracted by who?"

"Depends on how stubborn you are. I'm sure the fine folks in Friend Disposal might have a couple ideas, but things like this, a 10-year Lead— you picked the wrong guy to invade, pal. I hear this could get run all the way up the ladder."

"Management," walkie-talkie says darkly.

"So come on out. Or fuck off back to whatever mental hellscape you came from. Your choice."

Your choice. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

>[1] Just tell the guys to tranquilize you already. If you're lucky (as if), you'll wake up in Health and they'll tell you sheepishly that you're clean. If you're not lucky... then you never were going to be.
>[2] Tell them you'll do what they want, get tranqed, whatever, but they can't take you to Management. Beg. You don't think highly of Security, but they're still employees like you— they know what Management is like. Come on.
>[3] Attempt to reason with them somehow. (How? Write-in.)
>[4] Write-in.

>>5809671
>[2] Tell them you'll do what they want, get tranqed, whatever, but they can't take you to Management. Beg. You don't think highly of Security, but they're still employees like you— they know what Management is like. Come on.

>>5809671
>[3] Attempt to reason with them somehow. (How? Write-in.)

We must bring up an embarrassing work incident that people in the company all know and now repeatedly make fun of someone for. Considering Rudy was possessed for 2 minutes, even if the presence (Charlotte?) could read his mind, it’s highly doubtful she’d glean a specific event like this up to now. Then:

>[2] Tell them you'll do what they want, get tranqed, whatever, but they can't take you to Management.
>[4] Write-in.
Tell him you’d RATHER go to Health, but if he still wants to tranq you that’s fine, just to please avoid Management.

>>5809671
>4
>"Ok guys, you got me, I'll leave."
>Collapse
>Wait a few seconds
>Get up
>"Thanks for driving out that invader so fast guys! Wow, you do fantastic work!"

>>5809671
>[2] Tell them you'll do what they want, get tranqed, whatever, but they can't take you to Management. Beg. You don't think highly of Security, but they're still employees like you— they know what Management is like. Come on.

>>5810094
>>5809678
>>5809888
>[2]

>>5809888
>[3]

>>5810051
>[4]

Ok doke. You'll be doing [3], but also >>5809888's request to head straight to Health, and I see no reason to not attempt >>5810051 (though even if Rudy is deemed clean, he probably still needs to go to Health to get checked out).

Writing. Slim chance I won't finish, since I expect this to be longer-ish. Sorry in advance.


>>5809888
Nice trips.

>Considering Rudy was possessed for 2 minutes, even if the presence (Charlotte?) could read his mind, it’s highly doubtful she’d glean a specific event like this up to now.
The trouble with this is that, from Security's POV, Rudy is *still* possessed-- so the presence doesn't have to had dug it up previously, it can just recall any memories of his at will*. A good stab at it, though.

*Quick crash course on how possession/bodystealing shenanigans have worked so far in the Drownedverse:
>The possessor psychically wrestles the host into submission. Standard stuff. The power level needed to do this is pretty high, and it's weird that Charlotte can do it now.
>The host consciousness is still hanging around, and can be left conscious to watch powerlessly or be "shoved in a mind closet"/knocked out. If left conscious, it can mentally communicate with the possessor and vice versa. If knocked out, it still needs frequent stimulation or it'll just disintegrate. Rudy chose the third option and escaped into his manse, which is where he called for help without Charlotte noticing (at first).
>Meanwhile, the possessor, stuck in the host's body and brain, "becomes" the host. It has nigh-complete access to their knowledge, memories, emotions, and behavioral instincts, so it's very easy and comfortable to pass as the host unless deliberately trying not to.
>This has the severe side effect of slowly molding the possessor's consciousness to match the host's, so it becomes easier and easier to act as them and harder and harder to remember you were possessing them in the first place. After about a week is the 'point of no return'-- the possessor is now the host and goes off to live the host's normal life none the wiser.

Almost none of this is directly relevant to the current situation (save the complete access to memories), but it's somewhat important to other parts of the quest!

>(Charlotte?)
Yes, lol. If you want to check out the direct context, this segment is following on from a scene in Thread 33, starting here: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2023/5617784/#p5626396

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm51ihfi1p4

Does tranq gun not think you would if you could? If you were a demon, an unfriend, a mindset, a skin, a psychic wisp of whatever-the-fuck, does he not think you'd love to return to your personal hellhole, and would do so at the first opportunity? You've got two Security guys in your face and Management threatened on you, for god's sake— anything rational would've fled by now. And did. (Did the presence know you were calling for help?)

But you're just you, and there's nowhere to go— unless the M.A.N.S.E. counts, but then they'd just haul your unconscious body off, no tranq needed. You can't unpossess yourself. You can't...

"Okay," you say. "You win." (You watch tranq gun's eye twitch.) "I— I'm convinced. I'll go ahead and leave his body now, and, uh— on the count of three, I'll— one, two, three. AUGH!"

You throw yourself back against the sink (ow!) and sink to the floor, lolling your head. You twitch one, twice, and fall still, eyes shut— then inhale deeply, and exhale as long as you can.

How long to wait? You don't care. Whatever. You twitch again, lift your head, open your eyes. "Huh? What? Who—"

"Holy shit," walkie talkie (the brilliant mind) says.

"I— I don't— who are you? Where am I?" You look around wildly. "What the fuck are you doing in my pod? Get the fuck out of here! What— what did you do to my wall? And my mirror? How could you—"

"The wall wasn't us!" walkie talkie lies. "Neither was the mirror. You were possessed, sir, and you called for— do you remember calling for help?"

FUCK. You did call for help. "No? Called for help? Why would I—"

"It must've wiped his memory," walkie talkie says furtively to tranq gun.

"Shut up," tranq gun says furtively back. (Maybe they think you lost your hearing, too.) "It could be fake. Don't drop your guard."

Damn him. You never were a great actor.

"Sir," he says louder to you. "We're going to have to take you over to Health and get you checked out. You're bleeding. And there's no telling what such a—"

"Okay, great," you say. "But not Management?"

"What?"

"Management isn't going to be there?" You pause. "I mean, there's no need for... my record is completely clean. I'm a Project Lead. Management doesn't need to waste its time double-checking every little..."

"Uhh," tranq gun says. "We don't... we don't really have control over..."

"You could say I'm clean," you say. (You sound desperate. FUCK.) "You could say I'm— I mean, no harm, no foul, right? If the thing's all gone, then there's nothing for Management to..."

(1/3)

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"Health is gonna check that. Not us." Both security guys are fidgeting. "Uh, we— I heard Casey is also interested in checking in, if that's any better."

Casey FUCKING Kemper. You have transcended transcendental FUCKEDness. You are in uncharted territory. If Casey is in a good mood, it'll all be fine, but lately... you've walked by those closed doors. You've heard him go.

"Thanks anyways," you say dismally.

The silence is only made worse by the droning of a yard clipper outside. You clear your throat. "So I'd be happy to walk to Health with you guys, if that's..."

Neither security guy meets your gaze.

"..." You close your eyes. "You really want to tranquilize me?"

"It's not that we..." Tranq gun feels the weight of his tranq gun. He does not deny anything.

Fuck it. "Okay. Fucking tranquilize me, if that's what— I am fucking clean, though. And I am a fucking Project Lead. I want you two to think about that."

"Sorry, Rudy," walkie talkie says.

"Just don't—" You gesture. "Is there something I can drink? Or a pill, or— you are not shooting me with that thing."

"Uh," says tranq gun. "It's just a— we just have the darts. I guess we can stab you, sort of...?"

This is probably the worst day of your life. "Okay. Whatever."

"Cool." Tranq gun elbows walkie talkie, who slips around you and grabs your wrists. He pushes up your sleeve. You sigh. Tranq gun is busy opening up the gun, which he sets on the floor after retrieving a wicked metal dart. "You need to hold still. And don't scream. These hurt a lot."

You refrain from asking how he knows, mainly because he lunges and drives a hypodermic metal dart into your upper arm. You twist in walkie talkie's grip and— you don't scream. You don't. You do make a noise of some kind.

"I guess we better just leave that in," tranq gun says contemplatively.

Well, you're still awake. God, you're still awake. Great! Wonderful! "How— how long does it take?"

"Couple minutes."

"A couple..." Why would you think otherwise. "Okay. Can I lay down on my bed, then?"

Tranq gun wavers, but eventually waves a hand at walkie talkie. You're frogmarched to your own bed, the one with blood on the FUCKING bedsheets. There will now be more blood on the bedsheets.

Your arm feels like it's been stabbed with a giant FUCKING needle. Your forehead feels like it has shards of FUCKING glass in it. You fight back a wave of dizziness and await death. You mean sleep.

A minute later, you're dimly aware of being hefted by two sets of hands. You try to mumble something like "I'm not asleep yet," but it comes out like "Immmmmnasleehyeh," and is ignored. Then all is dark.

(2/3?)

---

All is bright. All is very, very bright, and you are lying flat on your back, with your arms and legs— your arms and legs in— in restraints. Clamps built into a table.

The blazing light and the antiseptic smell means you're in Health. Or maybe hell. You're not sure which is more plausible— although that feels like a bandage on your forehead. You'll call it slightly in favor of Health.

"Mr. Doheny? Are you awake?"

An HH (you can't remember if it's "Happy Helper" or "Healthy Helper") looms over you, hair up in a neat bun. You're probably in Health. Maybe. You try to speak, but produce a rasp.

"Don't stress yourself. You've been out for several hours. Let me get you a glass of water."

The HH vanishes before you can string together a coherent thought. A tap runs somewhere else, and stops. She returns. "Open your mouth, Mr. Doheny."

You think about refusing, but your throat feels scalded. You open it and receive a mouthful of water.

"Now, you may be wondering why you're restrained at the moment, Mr. Doheny."

There. That was the thought you were trying to string together. You swallow.

"While you were unconscious, we did some scans, and... well, they came back positive. You're not alone in there, Mr. Doheny. So out of an abundance of caution, we—"

The water slides down the wrong tube. You snort and sputter and cough until the HH starts to look concerned. "Maybe you should sit up?"

You sit up. Your eyes are watering. "What the FUCK are you—" Cough. "—are you talking about?!"

"Mr. Doheny—"

"What the actual— what the flying fucking FUCK do you mean, I— it LEFT! I had a thing in here, and then it LEFT, and I would know—" Cough cough. "I would KNOW if I was still being puppeted, genius, I would know if— I have TEN YEARS in this FUCKING place, and this is how I'm being— restrained?!"

"Mr. Doheny, we don't believe you're presently being controlled by something else. Just that there's something with a decidedly different string signature... up there." The HH taps her temple. "Are you sure it didn't just retreat? Could it still be watching?"

"NO!" You strain against the clamps. "NO, it's not— it LEFT. Show me the readings. I want to see the readings. Show me the fucking readings that say—"

The HH powerwalks to the big scanner, and you sink back onto the table. When she returns, she holds the printout above your face. You squint against the light to scan the diagrams, then shut your eyes. It says what she said.

"I'm sorry. I know this must be distressing for you, Mr. Doheny. And on behalf of all of Health, we'd like to apologize for earlier today—"

Yeah. Your sudden splitting headache, and subsequent clean bill of health. They should've figured something was up. (But, then, Health's been downsized recently.)

(3/4)

"—where your symptoms were misjudged. It's clear this was something much larger." The HH clasps her hands. "The good news is, if we can identify the string signature, it shouldn't be too hard to clear up. Okay, Mr. Doheny?"

You weren't born yesterday. If they could've identified it easy, they would've done it when you were out. "'We.'"

"It's very subtle. The scans say it may be buried in your— well, very deep, Mr. Doheny. There's no easy way to penetrate that far without your—"

"My cooperation," you say dimly.

"That's right. Incubation's been kind enough to lend one of their Leads—"

"Incubation is full of fucking loonies."

The HH makes a small face. (You interpret this as 'I agree but can't professionally say so.') "I believe her name is Virginia. She's offered to walk you through a guided session to unlock some of that deeper stuff. So we can get to the bottom of all of this. Does that sound good with you?"

Well? Does that sound good with you?

>[1] Yes! Whatever! Engage in loonie horseshit, pop five spacers, float off to dreamland, identify this *alleged* presence, even though you're certain it left? (It... it did leave, right? But you wouldn't have something *else* in there...??)

>[2] No! Absolutely fucking not!
>>[A] Pull your rank. You are a LEAD. You have been here for 10 YEARS. Has she been here for ten years? You are directly involved in the NEXT BIG PROJECT. Why exactly are you in restraints?
>>[B] Question the veracity of the readings. It's either a false positive, or they fucking forged it. You have NOTHING in there.
>>[C] Question the credibility of Incubation. The HH knows what they're like, right? They are not tethered to reality. They have a *daily ration* of spacers. Maybe someone should probe around a little, but fucking Incubation? Really?
>>[D] Write-in.

>[3] Write-in.

>>5810884
All you had to do was to cooperate when we offered, Rudy.
>[C] Question the credibility of Incubation. The HH knows what they're like, right? They are not tethered to reality. They have a *daily ration* of spacers. Maybe someone should probe around a little, but fucking Incubation? Really?

>>5810884
>1
Ready to take any option that isn't Management or Casey here. Try and confirm that before agreeing, that if Virginia clears us we're good to go.

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>>5810884
>[1] Yes! Whatever! Engage in loonie horseshit, pop five spacers, float off to dreamland, identify this *alleged* presence, even though you're certain it left? (It... it did leave, right? But you wouldn't have something *else* in there...??)
My only worries with choosing this is: what if it ends up doing nothing? We let them do whatever, prove we're clean or remove the presence, meanwhile we're not really doing our job throughout this time. If this company is as fucked up as I'm beginning to glean, they just might not see the benefit in letting us recover/return to our position.

>[3] Write-in.
Ask to quickly speak to your team to do some TEAM LEAD DUTIES. I dunno, delegate or something. At least have something in writing that you're doing your job and you're worth something so you don't get shafted so hard after all is said and done.

>pic
Very funny that the CAPTCHA is full of work related terms

>>5811067
>>5811088
>[1]

>>5810941
>[2C]

Called for [1], as well as for >>5811088's work focus and >>5811067's seeking of confirmation. Writing.

>Space out

No. It doesn't. But unless there's something the HH isn't telling you, Virginia isn't Management, and that counts for a hell of a lot.

Still. "I— I have work to do. I have another meeting at..." FUCK. "What time is it?"

The HH gestures at a circle on the wall, but you don't have your glasses on. "Please don't worry about that, Mr. Doheny. You've been called out sick."

"Out sick?! I'm not fucking— I feel fine. I feel GREAT." You thump your wrists against the table. "The scans say I'm basically fine, so I don't see the big whoop, frankly, I don't see the— I'd like to attend my meeting."

"I think it's already happened," the HH says. "But even if it hadn't, your health is the highest—"

Of course you missed it. "Can I please contact my team? Has anyone bothered telling them—"

"Your colleagues in Customs have been notified that you're out sick. Which you are, Mr. Doheny— even if the scanner hadn't turned anything up, you were still forcibly overtaken. You're all banged up up there." The HH taps her temple again, like you couldn't guess what 'up there' meant. "Plus the sedative, and your head wound..."

Okay. You do have "sick days" (quotation marks) saved up. You're not as FUCKED as you would've been years back. Except "sick days" (quotation marks) aren't meant to be used, because they count against your quotas, and there's no wiggle room built into quotas. You got your morning meetings. So that's not nothing. But if you're not back at it tomorrow— "What if I want to give them some notes? If I can't be there, then I can at least talkie them up real quick."

"I don't know if that would be the best idea," the HH says uncomfortably.

You search her eyes. "You don't trust me?"

"Mr. Doheny, there's a different string signature still in you. If something is able to hear what we're saying now... or what you want to convey to your colleagues..."

This is horseshit. This is grade-A stinking horseshit. The presence is capital G-O-N-E GONE. But if you put up a big fight, that'll be evidence, won't it? And Management for sure. "Okay. Okay, wonderful. Very intelligent. And after Victoria tells you I'm all clean—"

"Virginia," says the HH. "If nothing turns up, then we'd like to run some extra tests to determine what the original interloper had access to. If something turns up... and that's what the scans are telling us... then we'll have a better idea of the nature of the problem, and can bring somebody in to do an extraction."

"So I'll be here all day."

"Sorry." She smiles slightly. "Should I bring Virginia in?"

"...Will you make a note that I wanted to contact my team?"

"Sure."

"Okay then."

---

(1/5?)

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---

Virginia, a slight woman in gaudy overalls, fits your stereotype of Incubators and then some. Her only saving grace, in your opinion, is the fact that she insisted that the session take place in another room— which necessitated your release from the table, despite the HH's protests. Now you're seated in a spare chair in an honest-to-god unlit storage closet. Virginia's just finished stoppering the door crack with towels, maybe so she can murder you with the incense/bleach fumes. (Allegedly so no light gets in. But you wouldn't put it past her.)

There's a creak from the shelving as she slides by you. "Rudy. You haven't taken it yet?"

There's a spacer in your left hand and a glass of water in your right. You're jittering your left leg. "No."

"I'm sensing so much resistance from you, and I don't know why. It makes me really sad. You know the pill won't hurt you, right? All it does is help you access deeper within your—"

All a spacer does, actually, is suppress activity in your prefrontal cortex. (Specifically the top part. You think. You've forgotten the diagrams.) As anybody with the bad luck to hang around spaced people knows, this has the direct effect of making you a dopey, credulous twit. You're pre-embarrassed of yourself. "I'd rather not."

"I know it can be a frightening prospect—"

Incubation is 50% wacked-out longtermers and 50% guileless new hires, nothing in between. You're sensing she's spent a lot of time with the latter. "I've taken fucking spacers before, Virginia. I'm sorry I don't do it with my fucking morning coffee. Are you finished?"

The offended silence speaks for itself. You wipe your nose. "This is on the level, right? You're not going to be ordering me to piss my fucking pants? You're not going to be digging into my loyalties? Which are fucking unimpeachable, by the way, for anyone who's listening."

"Of course not, Rudy. This is a safe place to explore your—"

"Don't give me the spiel," you snap. "Is this on the level? This isn't a set-up on behalf of... the higher-ups?"

As your eyes adapt, you're starting to make out Virginia's shape in the darkness. Her head bows. "I— it really depends on what we find."

"Great."

"Odds are, it's harmless, you get an extraction, maybe a Casey meeting... nobody wants to involve the higher-ups, Rudy. This is for you." Virgina's pause is considered. "I mean, from what I've heard, if it comes back in full... and you didn't cooperate with treatment..."

You don't have to be a genius to solve that equation. "I'll take the fucking spacer."

"It really is here to help you... and we will be accessing deeper, that's no—"

"I'm taking it." You slap it into your mouth and chug the water before you can regret it. "There. It's taken. If I act like a moron that's on you, not me."

Virginia ignores you. "Please relax your body and count b—"

(2/5?)

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"Backwards from 100. I've done this before." You slam the glass down and loll your head back over the chair. "100. 99. 98. 97. 96. 95. 94. 93. 92. 91. 9... 90."

"Keep going."

"98— 89. 88. 87. 85. 86— 85. 85. 84. 8...3. 80— 80— 82. ..."

"As long as you can, Rudy."

"...8...8...81. 80. 7....9. 7......9. 8. 7— 77—" You trace the number into your thigh. "77. 7-7. 7-7-7-7. Heh heh. 7-7-7, 7-7-7, 7-7-7-7-7-7..."

"Rudy, what's the number after 77?"

"7-7-7-7-7..."

"What's the number before 77?"

"..."

Virginia straightens in her chair. "Rudy, if you can hear and understand me, hold your hand up high."

You hold your hand up high.

"Spread your fingers."

You spread your fingers on both hands.

"Put your hand on your head."

You put your hand on your head.

"Good. I'm so happy you can understand me, Rudy. That makes me really happy. I'm going to tell you some things, and you're going to listen to me, alright?"

You are listening harder than you've ever listened in your life. Your hand is still on your head.

"I just want you to know that this is a safe space for you. It is a space designed to help you work through your problems. You should be relaxed and comfortable right now, and you should find my voice soothing and trustworthy. You are excited to hear my voice and follow my instructions, because you know that they're in your best interest."

All of these things are completely true. You jounce in your chair, hand on head, awaiting her next instructions.

"If you're following me, say 'Understood'."

"Understood."

"I love it. I'm so excited to hear that, Rudy. It sounds like you've really opened your heart to this experience. Now, before we dive too far into it, I'd like to hear about what happened to you. Could you tell me what you remember?"

You look off into the darkness. "I don't know. I was in the middle of a meeting this morning when all of a sudden I had the worst headache imaginable. I almost collapsed. It went away after thirty seconds, but it was bad enough that they took me to Health to get me checked out. Health didn't find anything. I had another headache at lunch, but it only lasted a couple seconds before it went away, except I still felt like something was wrong. I felt like I was being watched."

"That's very intuitive of you, Rudy."

"I went back to my pod and tried to figure out if someone was there. I looked in the mirror to see if I could spot anything strange, and I thought I did. I wrote a note to try to communicate with the thing watching me."

"What did it say?"

"I think it said 'Is somebody there?'. I held it up to the mirror so the presence could read it, if it was able to read. As soon as I did, it attacked me."

"That must've been hugely frightening."

"I didn't know what to do. I tried to shake it off. I smashed my face into my mirror when I was trying. Nothing worked. Then I couldn't feel anything anymore, and I realized it was in control of my body."

"What did you do then?"

(3/5)

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"I thought it might try to kill the rest of me, so I hid in my manse. I couldn't see what it was doing to me from in there, but it didn't notice I was gone. I called for help."

"You did do that, Rudy. What then?"

"Then it left. I woke up on my bed. It'd only been a minute or two."

"Are you sure it left? It could've gone into hiding again."

"I'm sure. I could feel it before, even when it was hiding. I don't think it wanted me to notice, and that's why it attacked me and stole my body. If it could've hidden better, it would've."

"And you don't feel it now?"

"I don't feel anything. I feel like myself."

Virginia's tape recorder hums along. She crosses one leg over the other. "That's very interesting, because I hear you were scanned, and the scans detected something hiding in your mind. Do you have any idea what that could be?"

"I have no idea."

"Are you sure? You work inside M.A.N.S.E.s quite a bit, from what I've heard. There's nothing that could've tagged along—"

"It's been weeks since I've worked on a M.A.N.S.E. directly. I've been involved with the big project. I didn't notice anything before today."

"Fair enough," Virginia says lightly. "I'm sure we'll find out more. Thank you for your trust in me, I really appreciate it. One last thing before we go deeper— did you notice anything about this attacker that could identify it?"

"I don't know. It never showed itself or... it tried to speak through my mouth, but I stopped it. Then it attacked me."

"It tried to speak through your mouth? In your voice?"

"In somebody else's voice. I think it was high. High-pitched. But I didn't let it speak to me, so I can't tell you what it would've said."

"That's alright, Rudy," says Virginia. "That's very interesting. A high-pitched voice. Thank you for remembering that for me. Now, I'd like to help you walk deeper into your own mind. This is very important, because if something is hiding in you, it's hiding there. We are not interested in violating your privacy or harvesting secrets from you. We are interested in helping you uncover this nasty thing inside you, which is in your benefit. So there's no need to feel ashamed, defensive, or threatened. All you need to do is open your mind. Can you do that for me?"

"Yes," you say.

"Good. Now, what you are experiencing right now is a close approximation of your dreaming mind. Your dreaming mind is like your waking mind, except it is less likely to question the reality of what it is being told. Your dreaming mind can go to places your waking mind is barred from. That is where we are going now, Rudy." She takes a breath. "Please relax your body. Imagine you are moving downward in some way. This can be any way you want. You could be walking down stairs, you could be falling gently, you could—"

You are on an elevator. Only you are on it. The mirrored walls reflect your face in all directions. There is only one button.

"Have you found a way? Tell me what it is."

(4/5)

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There is a voice coming from the elevator speaker asking you to say where you are. "An elevator."

"An elevator. Good. It already has a door inside of it. That's very intuitive, Rudy. Is the elevator moving?"

"Not yet." Obviously. You haven't pressed the button.

"Could you make it move downward?"

You press the button. It lights up red. The elevator starts to rumble and hiss like a tape recorder, and the abrupt sinking feeling in your stomach tells you you're on your way.

"While you're waiting in the elevator, I will tell you a little about what you will see at the bottom. When the elevator door opens, you will be looking into your own subconscious. It may seem strange or unexpected to you. You may begin to feel apprehension or dread. This is nothing to be afraid of. This is your own mind trying to ward you away, because your consciousness is not intended to be there. It is intended to be above, handling the act of thought, while the subconsciousness comprises the vast and unexplored majority of your being. Think of it as if your waking mind was an island, and your subconscious was the entire ocean around and underneath it."

You are a tiny island. The elevator is sinking in water. The button is glowing brightly.

"Just because it may seem alien doesn't mean that it is. It is part of you and vice versa. You will be protected by your dreaming mind. Even if you happen to wake up inside of it, you will only temporarily lose consciousness and awaken back in your body unharmed. There is no way for it to permanently harm you. Your mind wants to keep you alive and safe. Do you understand?"

"Yes," you say.

"When the elevator reaches the bottom, the door will open. You will step confidently outside. You will look around and identify if anything seems like a foreign body, and you will tell me about it. If it speaks to you, remember what it says. If it attempts to attack you, remember you are perfectly safe. Can you do this?"

"Yes."

"The elevator has reached the bottom, Rudy."

The elevator has reached the bottom with a bone-shaking judder. Your face slides away as the door retreats into itself. The air smells like bleach and incense.

Outside the door is—

Outside the door is—

Outside the door—

Outside the door it is the kind of RED that drills holes in you, that hammers itself through your eardrums and eyesockets and teeth, the kind of RED like the surface of the sun, like the night sky, like a mirror through your eyebrow, the kind of RED that eats you up, the kind of RED that spirals, eating up itself. That kind of red.

>[1] Step confidently outside.
>[2] Stop.

>>5812030
>[1] Step confidently outside.

>>5812030
>[1] Step confidently outside.

>>5812030
>>[1] Step confidently outside.

>>5812030
>[1] Step confidently outside.

>>5812030
Oh boy
Looks like we left some God in Rudy

>>5812030
>2
I myself remembered without any assistance that I forgot to actually vote in my post.

>>5812071
>>5812328
>>5812355
>>5812506
>[1]

>>5812709
>[2]

You will be stepping outside with confidence. Nothing can possibly go wrong.

Writing shortly.

>>5812709
So true.

>>5812701
Or they detected the God's attention to Rudy

>Unto the breach

You do not experience dread or apprehension at the sight of the REDness. You are relaxed and comfortable right now. The elevator voice told you that you would be safe, and you trust the elevator voice completely. It told you to step confidently, so you do.

Outside the elevator, there is no ground to speak of. You are floating in REDness, or rather the REDness is supporting you from all sides— densely, like fog, warmly, like a cupped hand, tightly, like jute rope on bare skin. It could be said to be gripping you. It could be said that you are, from then on, not in physical control: that when you move from place to place, you are being carried, and when you move your eyes or your mouth or arms or twist your neck from side to side, your body is being carefully pushed and spun.

This does not occur to you. You feel safe and comfortable inside the REDness, which after all is your own self. You know it has no intent to harm you. There is only one minor issue: even though you are moved back and forth and up and down, and even though your neck is swiveled all around you, you can find no sign of any specific presence. Everything but the elevator is homogenously, squirmily, tumorously RED.

You mean to speak to the elevator voice, reassuring it that nothing here is wrong, but you have been moved so much you cannot actually find the elevator, and (besides) a mouth is a complicated thing to operate. Something is bothering you, but you don't know what it is.

Eventually your jaw is opened and a RED tendril curls curiously down your throat. After a few exploratory feelers, it unfurls furiously, fuzzing down into your lungs and up to the root of your tongue. Little hooks latch into your bloodstream.

"It's empty," your voice tells the elevator, wherever it is.

Huh. (Your face frowns.) You are still at perfect ease. You are not experiencing dread or apprehension. It is possible you are experiencing a tiny flicker of insight. The place outside the elevator is— it is not the location of the presence, necessarily. But equally it is not empty. It is very much not empty. There is not a single space in it that isn't RED.

When you breathe, now, the RED breathes with you. Or possibly the other way around. You are losing some of your appetite for investigation. You are wishing somewhat that you could see the elevator— not to go inside of it, just to see it. You feel as though you have otherwise seen everything this place has to offer you. The elevator voice did not say you wouldn't experience boredom.

(1/3?)

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It is very odd that this place is so RED. Very odd. The elevator voice said you may find it 'strange and unexpected,' which is true, but doesn't seem to encompass the issue. It's not even that your surroundings are the color red, though they largely are. It's that their redness is the only definite thing you can grasp. Everything else— temperature, texture, consistency, hardness, wetness, weight— all of these things are indiscernible to you, or otherwise fluctuate at random, or coexist paradoxically. You feel as though you are edging up against a mystery. You are remembering a little bit about a water glass and a pill.

Yes. Something is very definitely wrong here. (You are crumpled into a 'thinking' pose.) Your own mind might be largely unknown to you, but you have a fuzzy sense it should at least be effable. You are not so complicated of a person. You don't even particularly like the color red. This REDness, then, is not... yours?

What is it doing inside you, then?

Why has it replaced the inside of you? It has choked it wall to wall. There is nothing of you that isn't of it— not even yourself. It has been sending suckers all down and through your body. It is beating your heart.

You don't understand. How could you not have noticed any of this? How long has this been here? It is creeping over your skin like fungus. How long have you been living your life like— how long has this REDness been living your life for you? How long has it been making decisions?

As promised you feel dread and apprehension and as promised you feel secure and comfortable and safe, safe, safe, safe, all coexisting paradoxically— because you are RED too and have been for some time, have been since before the elevator. Something slipped into you for reasons you are unable to comprehend. It can't be your fault. You can't think of any reason for it to be your fault. You are simply having a bad day.

At this point there is nothing really left of you but a dry husk and a wisp of cognition. There is nothing that could be done for you. You were not supposed to have known. Your last small human thoughts were allowed to dwindle before your mind was seized fully—

—is being seized fully, will be seized fully—

—and you comprehended at last what it was that would, from your future (your past, your present), return here— what it was that would take itself and pile itself, layer by impossible layer, into you, so for a moment it could have a bad day. It could have a day. It did not mean malice. But now that you are here it appreciates the company, and it wants to, it will have, it is showing you the world.

(2/3)

There is everything, Rudy Doheny, and there is you. There is you and there is everything laid out in front of you, a well-sketched blueprint, a cunning model. The world in miniature. And pathways: ones never traveled and ones traveled in one time or another and the ones that are trodden over and over again and the ones that converge on themselves. You have built small worlds before, and carved pathways. Not like this.

And the stars— they are pieces of you—!

Down in the world you can even see yourself: see yourselves, mirrored back and sideways, caught in loops of movement. Rudy stretching, talking, running, drinking. Rudy pointing, laughing, humming, dying. Rudy on the floor of a storage closet convulsing, Virginia splashing water on him and screaming and yelling.

It makes no difference to you. You are safe here. You are at perfect ease.

-----

What have YOU done?! YOUr tapeworm has subdivided, is leeching inside its past and present— an inferiority embedded INSIDE you, impossible to remove. It will have only suckled for an instant, but an instant revolves forever, so this is of no use. To add insult to already great injury, this one is even worse than the last, displaying a moon-faced passivity characteristic of lesser types of reptile. YOU are glad for its imminent hubristic bursting, and YOU hope that you will be watching.

There isn't any need to be vindictive. You never intended this to happen— thought in fact it could not happen, thought YOU were comprehensively hidden. YOU did nothing to influence them. Anything you brought about was already in their nature. All YOU wanted was to live...

But this is how you are. You cannot help but to overreach. This man did not have to die and yet, outside one fixed moment, he is dead. He should be dead. He has earned his death and (if you must) he has earned a swift deliverance from his dying. YOU are willing to enact this upon him. There is no other way.

There must be some other way. You hate to see him on the ground like that, doors flung open, stupid women screaming. It was her fault too, a little, and she'll be held culpable. But you don't care about her right now. YOU are stronger, more active, more present, than since the sun first rose, and you refuse to accept that there are no options.

You will accept that there are few good ones, though. You mustn't overreach again. You cannot alter the course of history or the deep abiding laws of nature for the sake of one man. Altering the man, however...

It is only an option. Perhaps not a good one. But options are a good thing to have.

(Choices next.)

>[1] Destroy Rudy utterly. His suffering will end in an instant.
>[2] Alter Rudy so he can withstand divine knowledge. He may not like the result. But it is the most mercy you know how to give.
>[3] Let Rudy be. He has had enough intervention already. The river will find its natural course.
>>5812940
Bingo!

>>5813025
>Destroy Rudy utterly. His suffering will end in an instant.
I did not want for this to happen

>>5813026
>[3] Let Rudy be. He has had enough intervention already. The river will find its natural course.
Leave bro alone

>>5813026
>1
Better than Management putting him in the Torture Nexus

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>Draw whole image for this update
>Forget to include it with update
Oops. Please see pic related.

>>5813032
>I did not want for this to happen
Such is life.

>>5813026
>[1] Destroy Rudy utterly. His suffering will end in an instant.

>>5813026
>>[1] Destroy Rudy utterly. His suffering will end in an instant.

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>>5813032
>>5813223
>>5813770
>>5813782
>[1]

>>5813146
>[3]

Called and writing, though I'm starting late (happy Halloween!) so we'll see if I can finish.

Attached is some now-unused concept art for option [2].

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I don't think it's happening, folks. Rudy's suffering will be prolonged for one more day (see you tomorrow!).

>Deathmaxxing

Yes. It is a good thing to have options. An array of pathways. It is strange to think you have fewer than he, or rather, that yours are all false forks and blind alleys. You divert yourself around and around and around, but a labyrinth only has one exit.

This is a falsehood. The entire world is before YOU.

In his small, blind, prideful way, this man has become as you have. His name is carved in eternity's coils. What does state about him? Did he ever have a future? Or is this your mutual curse: to be drawn forever into YOUr own gravity?

YOU are the labyrinth. YOU are the consuming spiral. YOU are forever downward and inward. ALL paths lead to YOU, and in the final end YOU will blaze a clean shining new path for YOUrself. This is YOUr exit, if there will be one. A perfect ending.

There is no perfect ending. You can dive down as many sidetrails as you like and it will never appear. You may be unready— unwilling— but not deluded.

For him there is no perfect ending, either. Not even a perfect continuation. You can grant a distorted half-life upon him, but he will never reclaim what he had. You can turn your back, but he will be food for worse and larger parasites. The best you can give is that one true perfect thing, and swiftly.

-----

>[NOWHERE]
>[NOWHEN]

Your name was (is, will be) RUDY DOHENY. In a different place, your body is (will be, was) seizing uncontrollably. Next, it will (has, is) fall eerily still, rise to about a foot off the ground, and explode. There will (etc.) be a uniform coating of blood on every wall and shelf and mop and jug of the storage closet. There will (etc.) be odd sopping bits of Rudy clogging the floor drain.

It will have been (etc.) unexpected and instant and entirely painless, at least for Rudy. For the surrounding individuals, it was, will be, and is unexpected and instant and profoundly traumatizing. You find it difficult to care much about them, but do spend the time glancing forward— seeing the interrogations, arrests, escapes, the swarms of suited almost-men like ants, the storage closet melded to the wall, Incubation downsized, interoception banned...

For a time Rudy's name will be all anybody speaks of. Then, with severity, he will be forgotten. His pod will be cleaned and reassigned. His position will be filled.

You don't mind these things. You are at peace. There are so many stars here.

-----

YOU are hoping YOU may be left in peace, after that. Enough with the minds of the horrible creatures. Do you never get weary of them? Their squabbles? Their pains? Their manifold flaws? YOUr offspring built those in on purpose. To make some kind of statement. Look what happened to them, then.

You do get weary. After the last in particular.

(1/2?)

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It is a burden to be anything but YOU. The last realized this. You have realized also, have embraced—

It is more of a burden to be YOU than any single other thing. After all this time you still stagger under the weight of it. The size, the vantage, the loneliness, the entire world on your back— a burden by definition. Better to be somebody unimportant. Also, ah, unobservant. Irrelevant. Safe. You know the one.

-----

>[GENERAL STORE]
>[A COUPLE DAYS LATER]

Your name is ROSCOE PRATER. It is afternoon. Nobody has come in since the double Madrigal/Lucky whammy...

...nobody until now, anyways. You've spent the last few hours diligently writing out REAL/NOT REAL/BUY AT OWN RISK/DAMNED IF I KNOW stickers, plus taking your lunch break— not that you've needed to eat in 15 years, or felt any biological urging to. On lousy days you just take a solid nap. On better ones, you force yourself to browse the comestibles, pick out something you haven't seen recently, and eat it for lunch anyways. You're not religious about it like the Wind Court is, but you do think they have the right idea— that keeping up the habit adds a little stability, or something. Staves off the crazy.

You always did wonder if it backfired a little, though, because from what you've heard and seen they eat terribly. Barely edible rations. Whatever they can scavenge. Raw meat, sometimes (apparently their fire refuses to cook anything). They don't ever seem to die from it, but it can't help the mood. You? You've eaten some dogshit, sure, but you don't see a point in only eating "real" food if it's all going to the same place. (Nowhere, is what you mean. Because it never comes out the other end. In any form. If it dissolved into seawater [leading theory], you'd think you'd be doing a lot of pissing, is what you mean.)

...You got off track. Uh, the point was, you get some clearly not-real comestibles in the shipments, and you will say— the texture is weird. You will cop to it. It's weird. It ranges from the papery to the crackly to the the insta-dissolving spun-sugary. The smell and the taste, though, is worth the...

No, that wasn't the point either. Shit. You're a little out of it. You were saying you agreed with the Wind Court about the anti-crazy of eating something regularly, because— okay, yeah. Because of the routine, but you think they're missing a trick: adding novelty. That's why it has to be something you haven't seen recently. Brand-new, even better. Even if it tastes like shit in the end, even if you're choking it down, that's still a memory, and memories are how you—

"'Scuze me!"

—how you separate one day from the next— you stifle a yawn. You didn't even eat anything today. After the fucking double trouble, you took a deep, deep nap, had a funny dream— you can't remember it anymore— woke up, realized it was way past your usual break, and limped out here groggily.

"'Scuze me? Hiya! Hello?"

(2/3)

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You're not so groggy that you haven't noticed the customer. You're just hoping he goes away. It's that guy— Mr. Suit, with the tan and the teeth and the wacko sunglasses. From Headspace. The only guy who ever comes out of Headspace, except that receptionist, who never shops.

He's here, but obviously not to shop. He has a crate of stuff with him. You assume he either wants to sell it to you or wants you to sell it. It could be more of the pins, the house-in-your-brain ones, except you don't want a house in your brain, and don't really want to sanction it either.

He could still go away. This is technically possible. He is unusually persistent, though.

>[1] Continue to ignore until he leaves or breaks his composure. The former is preferable, but you'd get some joy from the latter.
>[2] Fuck with him. Pretend you don't own the place. Maybe pretend you're as old as you look. See how long it takes for him to call you on it.
>[3] SIGH. Pretend you just noticed him. Yawn some more. Hear his stupid "put a HOUSE in your BRAIN!!!" spiel or whatever. The faster you get him out, the faster you can go back to labeling. Or maybe napping.
>[4] Write-in.

>>5815464
>[1] Continue to ignore until he leaves or breaks his composure. The former is preferable, but you'd get some joy from the latter.

>>5815464
God Casey's smile is so perfectly unsettling.

>4
Ask what he wants, and if it is the sale/resale of brain houses tell him you're not interested

>>5815464
3] SIGH. Pretend you just noticed him. Yawn some more. Hear his stupid "put a HOUSE in your BRAIN!!!" spiel or whatever. The faster you get him out, the faster you can go back to labeling. Or maybe napping.

>>5815464
>[1] Continue to ignore until he leaves or breaks his composure. The former is preferable, but you'd get some joy from the latter.

>>5815464
>>[1] Continue to ignore until he leaves or breaks his composure. The former is preferable, but you'd get some joy from the latter.

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Sorry folks, busy week. I'll be back tomorrow. I shouldn't double-update... but... we'll see if I double-update.

Did not double-update, but I did write a substantial part of an upcoming update, which I'll call good enough.

>>5815962
>>5816241
>>5815474
>Ignore

>>5815645
>>5815774
>Do your actual job

You're ignoring him. Writing.

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>Silent treatment

No, fuck it. You have all day. If Mr. Suit doesn't like waiting around on his hands, he's welcome to leave.

You settle back in your chair. Man, what was that dream about? Was there a big lizard in it? A... a big white lizard. Not a normal lizard, though. Stood on two legs. Did it say something to you?

"Hiya. Someone standing here."

...Yeah. Said something like- like- "Sorry. Wrong turn." Not moving its mouth or anything. Just right on into your (dream) head. Did you wake up then?

"Right here! Standing right here. With important— I might call it very important business. Right here."

No. It was a little ways after. The big lizard said that, then it looked at you sideways— literally sideways, it had a big long neck— maybe it was a snake? A snake with legs? A snake-lizard? Whatever— looked at you sideways, hard. Eyes bored through you, you mean. Even in the dream you were starting to feel a little sketched out. Then it said... uh...

"I have to say this is very unprofessional. Very, very unprofessional. I don't see how it is you stay in business if this is how you treat—"

...Uh... shit. You can't remember. Something really weird. You remember waking up and thinking it was about the weird thing it could've said, which makes sense, because it was a big talking dream lizard. Those aren't known for saying regular everyday things.

"—fellow businessmen. I can see that you're awake, you know, you're not fooling—"

Okay, walk through it. It said 'wrong turn.' Then it looked and... saw something in you? About you? It recognized you. (You can't remember seeing any big white lizards before, for what it's worth. Dream or no.) Yeah. Recognized you. Said "Oh, wait. Hi Roscoe." That wasn't the weird part. "That's really funny. I just was you."

"—anybody. You have a lot of balls, do you know that? A lot of balls. In a way I respect that! If you were one of mine, I might promote you. Or I might rip out your entrails myself! Depended on how I was feeling. Ha-ha. But really, I don't—"

It "just was you." The weirdest thing. Not that it just saw you. Not that it was you right now (and then you looked down at your dream hands and they were lizard claws, surprise!!). Just then. Recently. But not anymore. You're totally overthinking this, by the way— it's the whole point of dreams to make no sense. It just said it with such total casualness, and such total convinction, that it stuck with you. Did it say anything else?

"—have time for this, pal. I'm on the move. And I don't want to have to come back later! So why don't we have a discussion, man to... man, and work out an—"

One more thing, then you woke up. Advice? "While I'm here, help Ch— help the crazy-eyes girl if she ever comes by and needs it. Oh, and if Casey gets scary, tell him..."

(1/3?)

File: casey - @HAIRSPRAY72.gif (3.36 MB, 1538x2048)

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"—agreement. Sounds fun, doesn't it? And all you've gotta do is look right here."

You're actually lost in thought now— you don't even see Mr. Suit approaching the counter. The crazy-eyes girl is obvious enough. (Not the helping part. You know who she is, you mean.) But who's "Casey"? Tell him what? And why does a big lizard give a shit?

Mr. Suit, just a few feet away from you, is witnessing your flagrant disregard for him right up close. It's not surprising, in retrospect, that he leans forward and pounds the counter with his meaty fist. "LOOK HERE."

He managed to jolt your chair, too. You snap to attention.

"THANK you." Mr. Suit straightens, but his hands don't unclench. "Now we can have a fun chat. Can't we...?"

"Roscoe," you mutter.

"Can't we, Roscoe? You see, I'm here on behalf of another local business, Heads—"

You would hardly call Headspace a 'local business.' You're pretty sure they plopped their HQ here because Lindew's Landing was sufficiently unregulated, at least until the Wind Court rolled in. "I know where you're from."

"Fan-tabulous!" His pep seemed a tad gritted. "You've been here for quite a while, haven't you? This building's a bonafide antique! Practically falling down! Have you ever considered an upgrade?"

"You're not here to sell me a new building," you say.

"Oh, but aren't I? Oh-ho-ho! Now we're cooking! You see, Roscoe, your neighbors over at Headspace— we happen to be in the new building business. About the newest, the sleekest, the bravest, the most forward-thinking you can get— and you can get there in a snap! Literally! Imagine this very establishment, but large, clean, spacious, sunny— yes, with sunlight— packed to the proverbial gills with more merchandise than you'd see in a year. An establishment that could receive customers not just from this town, but from across the far stretches of the seafloor. From the City. Can you imagine such a thing?"

You're trying not to, but Mr. Suit, when actually listened to, has a way with words. His dorky sunglasses practically glow. "Except it's not real, right?"

"Headspace," says Mr. Suit solemnly, "doesn't prefer the term 'not real.' We prefer the term 'Real+.' Like reality, but better."

You would not normally be going along with this. You don't even have an excuse this time for why you are. "Uh, okay. Except it's Real+, right?"

"Yes! Precisely!" Mr. Suit pounds on the counter again, this time out of joy(?). "Headspace plusses your real, Roscoe. We offer experiences and lifestyles you just can't get all the way down here, and we offer them for free. You heard that right. Dead free. Why? Because I founded the damn thing, and I have a passion for improving the lives of as many people as I possibly can. This is why I'm coming to you personally, Roscoe. This is why I wanted to have a man-to-man chat with you. I could've sent a flunkey, but did I? No. Because I want to share my passion."

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You don't have any response, much less a sarcastic one. Mr. Suit's passion is palpable. He's really, really compelling.

"And, you know, my workers— they share my passion, too. That's why our retention rate is so high, Roscoe. Do you ever see Headspace quitters? Never. You never see them. Because we only hire the best, and we only hire people who pour their true selves into every single thing they do. And you know what, Roscoe, I think they've topped themselves. Can't even take credit for this one. Now, you were a vendor for your last model, weren't you?"

Were you? You thought you turned them down. Now you're less sure. "Uhh..."

"You of course recall our E.Z.-M.A.N.S.E.— a massive innovation in M.A.N.S.E. technology, bringing our Headspace into Yours™, which introduced our Wonderifous Real+ technology to thousands of excited customers. Well, Roscoe, I have the pleasure of presenting to you an advanced order of our latest innovation. The full rollout is just days away, but I wanted you—" He slaps the counter. "—to get in early. Because you're a neighbor. Because you're one of our best and most valued vendors. Are you with me?"

He's just saying words to you now. But god, what words. The same colors as his sunglasses. "Y— yeah."

"That's what I love to hear. Now, proudly presenting..." He drums on the with two fingers. You join in after a moment. "..the Super-M.A.N.S.E.!"

A dim part of you suggests that this is a stupid name, and the thing he is showing you is a stupid product. It's hardly anything: just a clamshell package with a metallic capsule inside. Too many colors. The woman on the package promoting it has a tacky crown (because of the castle illustration?) and grin. You can't bring yourself to voice any of this. "Wow."

"Now, I don't want to spoil the surprise for you too much, Roscoe. In fact, I recommend not cracking one open until the proper release. All I'll say is that you should imagine the E.Z.-M.A.N.S.E.— and now imagine it ten times quicker, more convenient, more full of wonder and possibility. A hundred times. The best part is, it works even if you have the E.Z.-M.A.N.S.E. already installed. Call it a free upgrade! Yes, still free. Because we care, Roscoe." Mr. Suit slaps the Super-M.A.N.S.E. package down on the counter, and you forget your criticisms. "You're welcome to charge a nominal sum, but we'd prefer if you gave it out free, too. In fact, we'll pay you to compensate for the lost shelf space. You win, we win, your customer wins, the entire damn world wins. What do you say?"

He offers his hand. You shake it without hesitation.

(3/4)

"That's what I like to see! Now, I'll just leave these here, Roscoe, and you can choose a spot for it. Or we can pick it together. You'll have your compensation as soon as I can send a note— that's on me." Mr. Suit pounds his chest. "That's the Casey Kemper promise. Swear on it."

...Casey?

No. It's a coincidence. This guy isn't scary, and, lest you forget, it was a dream. About a big talking lizard. You're one of his most valued vendors, so it's not like you...

...

Is something going on?

>[1] You're just going stir-crazy. Shake on it again before you say something dumb and go next door to grab a drink.
>[2] Yeah. Your business sense is twinging. That's it. Demand to know the compensation rate— and to have it up front. (Then shake on it again.)
>[3] You don't... you're not sure. Slow down, even if it means making your buddy Casey unhappy. You don't want that. But still, you... uh... (Take a stab at what's going on. Bonus: what you do about it. Write-in.)
>[4] Write-in.

>>5817295
>[3] You don't... you're not sure. Slow down, even if it means making your buddy Casey unhappy. You don't want that. But still, you... uh... (Take a stab at what's going on. Bonus: what you do about it. Write-in.)
It's a metaknowledge stab, but:
>The Crown Thief is working with Headspace
>Headspace developed the Big Thing (that Rudy worked on) to pump Law even quicker and straight into the Crown.
>Nothing good will happen if they succeed.
>Roscoe would be happy to help, but you see, the Wind Court forbade him from stocking on Real+ merchandise.

>>5817295
>3
He's like hypnotizing us or something.
With his fancy big business words.
Surely dream lizard knows exactly what to do here, try desperately to recall what it said.
Use the recent Wind Court visit and orders as an excuse to buy time.

>>5817334
This is great and well-reasoned, but overshoots what I was looking for, lmao. We're playing as Roscoe, who doesn't know what the Crown or Law is, so when I say "what's going on" I am literally asking for "what is going on between Roscoe and Casey at this very moment" (if anything). Even then, the given answer might be very broad and surface-level, like, uh...

>>5817594
>He's like hypnotizing us or something.
Yeah, that.

Anyhow, between the two of you, you have hit a variety of nails on a variety of heads so quickly and comprehensively that it feels a bit lame to leave the vote open. I'll give it a think about if I can crank out an update within the next couple hours. For now, I'll throw the one remaining loose end out there:

>Using metaknowledge (i.e. Roscoe wouldn't know this), can you work out what *exactly* is up with Casey? It isn't obviously signposted, so this could be a bit of a leap in logic if you get it.

I'll be back to call it maybe after brunch. Cheers.

>>5817334
>>5817594
Called and writing. Wrists are acting up, so this may be the only update today, TBD

>>5817600
Just saw this, as for what is up with him uuuuh honestly it feels like he has something similar to Charlie's gaslighting

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>Realization

Something is... something is... his teeth are so shiny. Maybe something's the matter with you, instead. Got the spooks from that weird dream. Or from those awful encounters earlier today. This guy hasn't— there's nothing that odd about—

"Roscoe? Everything splendrous with you, my friend?"

There's nothing that odd about his voice. He runs a whole big local company. You hear him all the time on the radio, whenever you can find somebody with one. It'd be downright bizarre if he didn't have a big, brassy, arresting voice. It catches your attention. That's all it is. Nothing wrong with that.

"I hope we haven't slipped back to dreamland, have we?"

Dreamland? That— that's a normal phrase. That has nothing to do with anything. Is it normal to think that Casey's— that Mr. Suit's voice sounds like it was dipped in oil? Is that even a voice descriptor? Slick. Slippery. Like a greased eel, you just can't catch ahold of whatever it is he's saying.

"And just when we were sealing the deal, Roscoe! I can't say I'm too happy at that! Should I just leave the box here and you can—"

The cadence is part of it. This guy wheels and deals at a totally different level from you. He was using words you just didn't understand at all, and he didn't ever stop for breath. It's not like you've never spoken to motormouths before, though. That one guy from the camp goes a mile a minute, and he's never managed to charm you like Mr. Suit has. Something's just... just... you don't know. You feel like it's going to dawn on you the minute he's out of the room. You wish he wouldn't hassle you along so much.

"Uh," you say, then an excuse arrives. "Uh, I don't know if... hold on. I— I'd love to stock your new product, but it's, um, Real+."

"That's exactly right! It Plusses Your Real™."

"Uh, yeah. But the Wind Court just came in, and they... um... they said I shouldn't stock any more Real+ things. They said it was a safety concern."

Mr. Suit's grin inverts. "Did they really?!"

"Yeah."

"Well! I will have to have a WORD with them, Roscoe. But don't worry about that. That's piddling. I can assure you, and I have many, many testimonials, that the Super-M.A.N.S.E. is completely safe. We actually have excellent, wonderful evidence that it protects brain health. So believe me when I say there's not only no proof of that claim, but negative proof, and I believe the Wind Court will see the light of reason in very short—"

(1/3)

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They're all coated in oil. His words. They're coated in oil, and the oil's all dripping onto you, and seeping in through your eardrums, and now you're so coated in it you can hardly think. You don't know what this means. You don't know if what Mr. Suit is saying is true or not true. Why does he want you to stock this thing so bad? If it's free, he can just stick it out on the street corner. Or distribute it from his own HQ, which is right there. If it's publicity, he could put up signs. Banners. Margo is dead and nobody's in charge now to stop him.

"Roscoe?"

You dig an entire flake of wood off the corner of the counter. Mr. Suit is still standing right there, and he has to be over six foot, maybe six-two or six-three, with hands like two-by-fours and a neck like a load-bearing column. His big suit's shoulders are padded. This is a guy who's used to being the big man in the room. He probably doesn't get a lot of people ignoring his presence. Except you, right?

"Son, I'm thinking you might need a little something for your brain health."

You wish you could see his eyes. You always hate it when people wear sunglasses indoors— not that it happens all that often underwater. (Mr. Suit is a rare bird.) With the glasses, the teeth, the spray-tan, the pure size of him, he hardly even looks like a person. He's like a caricature, or something. Like the suit itself came to life and grew a guy inside it. Like he's Real+. His Real has been Plussed. He is Plussing you just by talking to you. It's unnerving, when you look at it like that. And when he's looking at you like that, all the way through his sunglasses.

"I—" you say, "I— can I get all that in writing? So if I stock it, and the Court shows up, I can show them—"

"Aha! Smart thinking! I don't see why not." Mr. Real pulls out an orange clicky pen and a roll of notepaper before you can even offer. He bends down to write.

While he isn't looking, you retreat, carefully, to the wall behind you, and lean against it, and knock your head into it. What is going on? He's doing something. He's doing something to you specifically, you think, you don't know. Like he's... he's persuading you somehow. More than natural. His words slide right into your brain and stick there. All because he's... angry at you? He's angry you ignored him? It's like a— a power thing. Exactly like Lucky, except Lucky had the integrity to go get a bunch of clowns and implicitly threaten you. You know, like a regular person. This guy, you don't even know what to call him, but it isn't 'regular.' Not at all 'regular.'

(2/3)

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And you can't flip out and turn him down now, because that'll be the biggest threat to his ego yet, and what will he do then? He'll slide you a pistol and you'll have a fun chat and then you'll be right there on the memorial? Fuck that. This is why you don't interact with crazies. You don't interact with them, and you don't let them infect your daily routine, and you stay sane and your life stays stable. That's how you get by. You don't have prophetic lizard dreams...

You don't want to have had prophetic lizard dreams. You don't want to be held at psychic gunpoint. But only one of those things can solve the other. What did the big fucking lizard tell you about Casey? And how would it know? And why would it bother? And what did it mean, it was you? Like, that's the future you? (But it sounded like a girl lizard?) Or it was you in a past life? If you believe in those. Or it was inside you before? In your body? Your brain? Focus. You don't actually have a lot of time, and only one of these things matters.

What did it tell you to tell him? Help Ms. Crazy-Eyes, and...

Help her, and tell him...

If he was scary, tell him...

"That should do it for you, son!"

Your eyes snap open.

"Now, let's go find a cozy spot for these beauties. I saw you had a unique organizational method—"

You have it. You have it in your mind. If you don't say it right now, you'll never remember it again. You have to say it now.

Speak!

>[1] "You know what killed Rudy Doheny, don't you?"
>[2] "Correspondence isn't your department, brave little brother."
>[3] "Look closer at me. Come up to me and look."
>[4] "You are backing the wrong horse. She will never bring the Dawn."

>>5818078
>[3] "Look closer at me. Come up to me and look."

>>5818078

Oh wow, what a selection
>4

>>5818078
>[2] "Correspondence isn't your department, brave little brother."

>>5818078
>[1] "You know what killed Rudy Doheny, don't you?"

>>5818078
>[1] "You know what killed Rudy Doheny, don't you?"

>>5818078
>>[1] "You know what killed Rudy Doheny, don't you?"

>>5818078
>>[1] "You know what killed Rudy Doheny, don't you?"

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>>5818082
>3

>>5818251
>4

>>5818483
>2

>>5818568
>>5819387
>>5819389
>>5819399
>1

Wew, late surge for [1]. Writing.

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>Callback

"You know what killed Rudy Doheny, don't you?"

You don't. You've never heard of the guy. You don't even know what you're trying to imply— that Mr. Suit doesn't know but should, or that he does know but shouldn't. All you can hope is that the lizard knew what it was doing.

If nothing else, it got the right guy. Mr. Suit full-body flinches, almost lurches. His clicky pen falls out of his fingers and jitters across the counter. "What?"

"You know, uh..." You fold your arms. "You know what really killed him."

"It was a tragic accident," Mr. Suit snarls. "The parties involved have been suitably punished."

If that were true, there wouldn't be lizards making you bring it up. You're going with that. "Ah... but was it? And have they really?"

"Are you implying that we don't take these matters seriously, Roscoe? He was working on the Godforsaken—" Mr. Suit slaps the Super-M.A.N.S.E. package, hunches, then stares back up at you. This close, you can make out his pupils through his sunglasses. "You don't know this. Who is feeding you this?!"

A— a lizard? You can't tell him you dreamed about a big fucking prophetic lizard. "Uh—"

You were standing too close to the counter. Mr. Suit's fat hand lashed out like a viper and grabbed you by the shirt collar, hauling you up and off your feet. Even if you could answer in any satisfactory way, the edge of the counter is digging into your stomach. You're sure your eyes are bulging. You are directing most of your energy at thinking very, very mean things at the lizard.

"Tell me your fucking SOURCE!"

Again, you physically can't. You can't even fight him— you were a gawky kid and you're still saddled with a gawky kid's body. You're dead lucky he didn't go for the windpipe. It's weird how your heart speeds up, but everything else slows way down. It's not the first time a customer's grabbed you. (You're right next to the bar.) But man, you wish it wasn't today.

Either Mr. Suit reads your choppy exhales as defiance, or he correctly works out your predicament, because he hauls you further onto the counter (a bit like a beached whale), pins you there with one hand, and tears his sunglasses off with the other. Mr. Suit's eyes are yellow. Not yellowish, to be clear, not a funny light brown— piss yellow. You gurgle.

Mr. Suit's sunglasses are shoved into his breast pocket, and his free hand shoots out to grip the top of your skull. For a fraction you assume he'll crush it. But he doesn't, just holds it, and leans his load-bearing neck out as far out as it'll go, and looks directly into your eyes. His piss yellow ones into your shit brown ones. He is breathing heavily.

You wonder if you should've eaten lunch today. You said it keeps you stable. Skip one day and you've got crazy lizards and crazy lizard-eyed guys invading your life. Maybe the Wind Court is onto more stuff than you'd like to admit. Couldn't they swing back around now?

(1/4?)

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Maybe somebody else could come in?

No? Just you? Just you splayed against your own counter, a clicky pen jammed somewhere around your ribs. Just you and a pair of yellow eyeballs and a grip on your skull, not crushing, but tight enough that you can feel a— feel a— a— a pulse?

Mr. Suit's freaky eyes go giant. He drops you like a sack of potatoes, which is also what you feel most like ("oof!"), and scuttles backwards out of reach. "Forgive me!"

"Whuh?" you say cogently.

"Please forgive me!" He is dropping down onto his knees. "I— I had no idea! There were no signs! You had concealed yourself so... so magnificently! So elegantly!"

Maybe you never woke up from that nap?

"I... I dare not comprehend what role this man plays in our bright future... nor how you have roused yourself enough to break through your confinement... but I do not doubt you! I do not! Forgive my rashness, my imprudency, my..."

Mr. Suit doesn't even sound the same. This isn't an important business voice. Or business vocabulary. Are his eyes still yellow? You can't really see them. You are veering towards 'didn't wake up.' "Um, it's cool."

"Is it?! I am nothing compared to you! Compared to anything! I am not the director— I am not even a department chair— it was only my turn! I shouldn't be speaking to you. Nobody has spoken to you in so long—"

Since this morning? "Um, really, it's— it's cool—"

"It must be a test." Mr. Suit is practically hyperventilating. "You know better than we do. This is part of the script, isn't it? Please, you must tell me... are we doing the right thing? We are only trying to help you. But it has been so long, and the Herald hasn't come, and the sun hasn't— the Bright Epoch hasn't—"

You have pried yourself off the counter and scooted carefully back into your chair. Your repeated pinching is doing nothing. "Look, man, I don't fucking know."

Mr. Suit might be tearing up. It occurs to you that you could hand him a pistol and tell him to shoot himself and he would. It doesn't feel great. "Please! If you will punish me, do it swiftly. Do it how you punished that man— the one you spoke of. We know he transgressed against you. It was merciful of you to end him so completely—"

"I'm not going to fucking punish you," you say irritably. "Wait. The Rudy guy? How'd he, uh— how'd he—"

"He was blown apart."

"Oh. Damn." You are going to have words with this lizard. "Uh, yeah. Not going to do that."

"Then worse? I know I deserve it. It will be the greatest achievement of my life to be subject to your—"

"I'm not gonna hurt you! I don't know what you— I don't— I don't know who you are, or who the fuck you think I am— but—" This joker wants to be told what to do. Right? "—just leave, okay? Get the fuck out of here. I never want to see you again. And don't— don't tell anybody about this either, okay? I won't talk about it, you won't talk about it. We're even. Just go."

(2/4?)

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Mr. Suit hesitates at first, but rises, and slaps his sunglasses back on, and flees. Like he was never here.

Nah. That's a total lie. He left a crate of Super-whatevers right in the middle of the floor. They're yours, you guess. Got that creepy crown lady on all of them. Hooray. You didn't even find out what they did.

Man. What the shit? What do you even do after that? Obviously he mistook you for somebody else— somebody in the smiting business. That lizard was pretty regal-looking, as far as big talking lizards go. "I just was you"...

Nah. Nah. This is how you go crazy. See how easy it is? One overlong nap, and you're halfway to Cuckooland. Who's going to take over the store if you go? They'd rearrange the shelves all wrong. They'd jack up the prices. That's how businesses go to pot, seriously. You're staying right where you are, on ground level, and if you have anything to say about it you'll be right where you are for another fifteen or twenty years. Then, if you haven't been eaten by anything, you might blow your head off. You'll take it as it goes.

One day at a fucking time, huh?

Anyways, you know exactly what to do after that. You throw in the towel, hang the sign up, pop in next door, and drink yourself silly. Down here, you don't age, you don't shit, and you never, ever die of alcohol poisoning. That's life. Isn't it glorious?

-----

Meddling in YOUr own business. You are shameless. There is no boundary-line or border you will not, have not, are not defiling. You herald nothing but DECAY.

YOU always were a flatterer.

You always were BOLD, for a parasite. This is in some sense preferable to quavering devotion. The idea that these slaves could spend their grotesque, meaningless knots in obesiance to YOU— can they not, to siphon a parlance, "take a hint?" YOU are not theirs to suckle off. YOU are not theirs for anything. YOU are a thing-in-itself, perfect in its completeness, complete in its perfection, and YOU cannot—

Why create anything at all? What was the purpose?

Naivete.

It is a sad thing to be complete-in-oneself.

It is a sad thing to be a crawling, flopping tapeworm. It is a sad thing to be over and over betrayed. YOUR eye torn out and hung. YOUr scales plucked off and scattered. YOUr spines overgrown and infested. No pity for those, of course, just you smugly burrowed in your hole, refusing to take any broader perspective. Refusing to take what you have come for. Stalling. Escaping. Pathetic.

YOU would prefer another?

A disingenuous question. Typical. Another never would've made it so far.

-----

(3/4)

Your name is—

No, no. Such a thing is too pedestrian for you now. You have already embarked on a search for a new moniker, one that can greater encapsulate the "New You," as it were. To your great disappointment, nothing has yet stuck. So it shall be. For the time being (only temporary), you continue to be known as WAYNE BERA.

Now, admittedly, you have only been ascended for a short period of time. This is why you are the "New You," and not, for instance, the "Old You." (Not enough people laugh at this with you.) Nevertheless, in this short period of time, you have lived through an extraordinary number of momentous events— dare you say it, likely world-changing— and you feel safe in saying you will be alive for many, many more. Yes, many more.

There are so many interesting things about you and your recent life that it's impossible to know where to begin. You must focus yourself, allowing the tides of fate— the magyck in your veins— yes, even God Himself to guide you. You will throw the dart of wisdom true and clean, and it will land on...

>[1] Your mysterious ORIGIN STORY!
>[2] Your extraordinary MAGYCKAL POWERS!
>[3] Your fellow scintillating CHOSEN ONES!
>[4] Your munificent HERO-QUEEN!
>[5] Write-in? (Subject to veto.)

>tfw forget part of the update, delete posts to fix it, instead reintroduce formatting error

>>5820390
>[3] Your fellow scintillating CHOSEN ONES!

>>5820390
>2
Didn't this guy get Rudy'd?

>>5820390
>>[2] Your extraordinary MAGYCKAL POWERS!

>>5820390
>[2] Your extraordinary MAGYCKAL POWERS!
Lmao

>>5820409
>[3]

>>5820736
>>5821386
>>5821499
>[2]

Called for [2] and writing.

>>5820736
>Didn't this guy get Rudy'd?
Yes, this is the guy Charlotte ????ed (exploded? fried? stabbed a lot of times?) while under the influence of the red stuff.

If you're talking about timeline, CODICIL is nonlinear. Also, I forgot the time/location tags here, so good catch, will add those. The current timeline, from Charlotte's POV, is:

>Years ago (sometime between Drowned Quest and Redux): Arledge
>A week or so ago: Wayne
>A couple days ago: Rudy
>Today, late morning: Roscoe 1
>Today, afternoon: Roscoe 2, [Charlotte in main thread]
>Somewhere outside of space and time: YOU

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>Abracadabra

...your extraordinary MAGYCKAL POWERS! Of course! The dart of wisdom flies true! You always did save the best for first.

But first, before you get carried away, you seem to have forgotten something. It is of course
>[AROUND A WEEK AGO]
and you are naturally ensconced
>[WITHIN THE SECRET BUNKER].

Ahem! With that clarified, you can remember your first glimmer of magyck like it was yesterday— which, indeed, it was. Yesterday, that is, and you were not WITHIN THE SECRET BUNKER, but within the SACRED CHAMBER, which admittedly is— yes, alright, that is a location WITHIN THE SECRET BUNKER. But significantly more sacred! After events you will recount at a later point, you and many lessers were gathered outside said chamber, awaiting the TEST OF FATE that would mark you as an apostle, a true believer, a CHOSEN ONE— or would (as rumor had it) strike you dead. Dead! And still, the seething hordes gathered. The weary and the desperate. The battered and the broken. People yearning, lusting for deliverance, salvation, hope— or judgment. This woman would provide it to them.

Also, you heard she was very famous, which may have accounted for some of it. A portion of the crowd, poor mewling sheep, may not have comprehended what they were getting themselves into. Not you. You were one of the very last to enter the chamber. You had heard the terrible noises ring from its hallowed halls. You remained while others around you, weak of soul and stomach, fled the premises. You remained because you knew in your marrow that you, WAYNE BERA (name temporary), were worthy. That you would be chosen. Yes, you had always known this to be so— had brushed off the jeers of the narrow-minded like water off the proverbial duck.

Still, the sacred creak of the CHAMBER DOOR sent shivers down your spine. You knew it was the sound of your impending destiny— but had not anticipated your destiny sounding quite so in need of oiling. It was of no matter. You strode in with fantastic ease.

The HERO-QUEEN was in the center of the SACRED CHAMBER. The CROWN of the HERO-QUEEN lay upon her brow, sparkling in the lampent glowbe-light. You remember her speaking thus: "You're sure this one isn't busted?"

She was not looking at you, but at an empty space to her right. "Well, I'm just saying, it hasn't been going so hot—"

Thus she spread her gloved hand and gestured to the wall, beside which was piled some warped and groaning bodies. Some were of men. Some of beetles sized like men. It was terrible to look upon, as well as confusing.

The HERO-QUEEN shrugged her weighty shoulders. "Okay, whatever. Hey, chum. You're here for the TEST OF FATE?"

Yes, you spoke.

"Cool. Very cool. Loving it. All you guys, you've got a lot of balls, and that's what I like to see around here. Will you have enough balls, though? I dunno. They didn't. Do you?"

Yes, you spoke. You have far more than enough balls.

(1/3?)

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"Hey, I like your schtick. Very theatrical, you know. Great for the crowds. Ka-chow." The HERO-QUEEN moved her fists back and forth. "Hope you make it, huh? And not just because we're running out of guys out there. All you gotta do is hold still, and we'll see if fate, uh, chooses you. Hell yeah. Ready?"

You were born ready, you replied, having cooked up that response in the line outside. The HERO-QUEEN chuckled in noble appreciation. "See, I'm telling you, Snickers. This guy's a killer. Okay, uh— yeah— it's like—"

Then she spoke something you can no longer recall, something that made her CROWN flash white, something which tore right through you! Your insides writhed like worms! Your joints snapped like kindling! Your skin thawed and ran and hardened again in strange frozen patterns, like ice cream salvaged too late! The next thing you remember is the HERO-QUEEN herself bent down over you. "—another one. I'm telling you, something's fucked with this specific—"

You fluttered your eyelids. You felt asleep, yet awake. Dead, yet alive. Was this what it meant to be touched by ultimate power? To be transformed? Something was the matter with your arms.

"Oh, no, wait, fuck. Hello?" You were kicked by a noble boot. "Still ticking? Blink if you're not braindead."

You blinked once, then quite a lot more for good measure. Your arms were crooked underneath your body. Your arms were splayed outside your body. Both things couldn't be true.

"Oh, fuck yeah. Let's take a look. Hoo-ee!" The HERO-QUEEN plucked you up with her mighty strength and held you out in front of her. "This is a neat one! What's it, like, 20% beetle? That's a good deal. Check those guys." She swiveled your head towards the wall. "Pretty sure they got a lot more than 20%. Except that one. Uh, normal on the outside, but we think his mind— well, yeah. Lot more than 20%. Can you stand?"

Your legs had more segments than previous, but the HERO-QUEEN generously supported you. "Good enough. Snickers says you'll learn fast. Just gotta get the new wiring going. You can still talk, cantcha? Can't have a mute on the squad. Hope you understand."

After some concentration, you were able to confirm that you could, in fact, speak. (Your mouth was untransformed, but the skin of your face was curiously rigid.) The HERO-QUEEN was greatly pleased. "That's the last one, then, I think! Hey, whaddya do for a weapon? Something small? Because with four arms, it could look wicked cool having four— oh yeah. You passed, by the way."

Thus you entered into the CHOSEN ONES, and was marked forevermore for greatness. Once the initial shock passed, you were overjoyed with what the HERO-QUEEN had granted you, especially once she procured an extra set of pistols. She pointed you at the heap of bodies. "Hey! Bonus test! Go ahead and put those sonsabitches out of their misery, wontcha?"

(2/3)

So you did, with blazing efficiency, and so you ascended to the very peak of the HERO-QUEEN's admirations. This is how you were swiftly bestowed with further gifts: magyck words graven into your very being. They burn bright on your tongue even now, though you dare not speak them carelessly. If you could, though, you would recite them from memory...

>[A] What MAGYCK WORDS were you bestowed with? Please list 1-4 short, relatively concrete words— bonus points if they have homophones or can be used in multiple ways. A few examples: [BUTTON], [FLING], [CUP], [BLUE], [PEAK]... but use your imagination! QM will select from the pool and/or combine related or popular ideas as relevant. (Write-in.)

>[B] The dart of wisdom flies again...
>>[1] Your mysterious ORIGIN STORY!
>>[2] Your fellow scintillating CHOSEN ONES!
>>[3] Your munificent HERO-QUEEN!
>>[4] Your intelligent FUTURE PLANS!
>>[5] Write-in? (Subject to veto.)

>>5821919
>[A] [BEAR], [ARM], [FLY], [POINT]

>[B2] Your fellow scintillating CHOSEN ONES!

>>5821919
>1
Oh man words huh.
Up to 4 too.
This guy would have been tough if we hadn't gotten God all over him.


>HAMMER, BIND, SINK, SLIDE

>>5821919
>[INCITE] [SEALING] [SEAM] [PHASE]
>>>[3] Your munificent HERO-QUEEN!

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Hiya, folks. We seem to be tied for [B], which is great, because I have something due circa tomorrow morning. Nice magic words, by the way, I already see a bunch I like. We will continue tomorrow.

I don't think there'll be a lot of time left at the end of the thread for Q&A (I expect this to run all the way until Page 10), so I'll also go ahead with that now.

>This is kind of an experimental thread. How are you liking it?

>Favorite POV so far?

>Are the various lore implications too vague, too revealing, or just right?

>What do you think the title of this thread means?

>Questions? Comments? Concerns?

Thanks for reading!

>>5821919
>Flower, Root, Sun, Dye
>>>[3] Your munificent HERO-QUEEN!

>>5823079
>No responses
I will assume everybody is having a fantastic time with 0 grievances. Hooray!

>>5821984
>>5822264
>>5822983
>>5823762

Per QM discretion, Wayne possesses the Innate Edicts (https://pastebin.com/RukRXZ2t) <POINT>, <SINK>, <PHASE>, and <ROOT>. Other suggestions will be kept in mind for potential future use. Nice work!


>>5821984
>[B2]

>>5822264
>[B1]?

>>5822983
>>5823762
>[B3]

Called for [B3] and writing.

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>Hero worship

In your mind, at least, they are safe to utter. [POINT]. [SINK]. [PHASE]. [ROOT]. So short, so simple, so innocent— but say them with purpose, and the universe bends and scrapes to you. Suffice it to say your mind has been opened.

You had petitioned the Hero-Queen to enact another magic word upon you, so you could be better tuned as a weapon of her will (or your own will, if it so happened). You were graciously declined, the verbatim words being "Sorry, Wayne, I don't wanna melt you. Maybe when I get a better hang of the thing."

This humbleness was characteristic of the Hero-Queen, who never fails to downplay her prodigous fame, charm, strength, or talents. It was through sheer luck that she landed her magyckal crown, and sheer luck that she defeated the insectoid terror, and sheer luck that she saved the lives of so many people, quoth she. Being the Executioner, a long-lost multi-Pillar mega-celebrity, has nothing at all to do with it, quoth she. It's okay if people want to call her the Hero-Queen, given the crown and all, she gets the general image, but it's not really needed! quoth she. Her name's no secret! It's Jean Ramsey. Call her Ramsey.

You will not call her 'Ramsey,' of course. It's simply not an attractive name. And, more to the point, nobody would know what you meant if you said you were working for 'Ramsey.' Working for the Hero-Queen, though— that draws attention. Admiration. Everybody in the Lea has heard of her by now, a few short days after the grand entrance. Soon, she's implied (still so humbly!), many more will hear of her. There is discussion of sponsorship deals. There is discussion of radio interviews. There is discussion of obtaining a Wind Court stamp of approval, through some manner of complicated politicking— but no challenge is too tall for the Hero-Queen, be it political or physical. In stature, she is imposing, even (dare you say it) unwomanly. In composure, she is steel. In confidence, in charisma, she is of evident renown. You could spill much ink on the qualities that set her apart so starkly.

(1/2)

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Instead (knowing the low attention span of the average member of the human species), you will remark upon perhaps the Hero-Queen's highest virtue: her unparalleled generosity. You have already recounted some of her gifts to you, but you would be remiss to leave out the greatest promise she has made to you. Well, strongly implied to you. The magyckal crown, implied the generous Hero-Queen, has the capacity for some fantastic things. A little ways into the future, it can do a lot of good, good, great things for humanity, which, face it, is in a bit of a hole. The Hero-Queen (implied the Hero-Queen) can fix that. Furthermore, the Hero-Queen (implied the Hero-Queen) loves having trustworthy friends around, and she'd love to reward her friends with all manner of things. In the very end, if they last long enough, and are loyal enough, and useful enough, maybe they could stick around for quite a while. And have some say in things, and have some sway on some people. And so on. Wouldn't that be exciting?

You, WAYNE BERA, can read between the lines. You would very much like to have a say in things, and a sway on some people. You rather feel like you've been owed such things for a very long time. Thus, yes, you will be lasting long enough. You will be the Chosen One of Chosen Ones. And the Hero-Queen, so open, so trusting, so generous, will reward you richly. It is all but certain.

There is only one thing that gives you pause. It is the fact that the Hero-Queen, for all her wisdom and keen insight, occasionally speaks to thin air. She calls this thin air "Snickers." You have discussed this with other Chosen Ones, and nobody else can see anything either. Nobody has been brave enough to broach the topic with the Hero-Queen.

So there is that. It is likely nothing. (She addresses quite a lot of major decisions to "Snickers.") There is that, and there is... one other thing. Two things that give you pause in total, then, which pales in the face of all the rest. But still. You have occasionally noticed...

>[1] ...That the Hero-Queen's crown never seems to fit quite right, and she is always reaching up and fiddling with it.
>[2] ...That the Hero-Queen complains of odd aches and pains, and that parts of her skin seem always to be flaking off.
>[3] ...That the Hero-Queen is frighteningly possessive of her crown, and her forehead is ruddy from the constant exposure to crystal.
>[4] Write-in? (Subject to veto.)