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She goes. Inside you, the Herald-shape fractures and crumbles into harmless dust. You blink and blink and flex your hands and loosen. You don't feel good, but you don't feel awful, either.

>[ID: 5/14]

«»«—lotte.»
«Charlotte.»
«Charlotte.»
«Charlotte, come in. Charlotte. Charlie. I—»

Oh. Hi, Richard. You're here. You're okay.

«Oh, thank God.»
«Thank God. You had me frightened.»
«I thought they severed us. Or else they put you under. Or else they were baiting me out. I attempted not to hope—»

Um, yeah. You're totally fine. You're glad he was worried, though. Or, um, no. You're glad he cared so much, but you're fine.

«Good.»
«What did happen?»

Oh. Right.

>[1] Tell Richard exactly what happened. He told you to tell them you were the Herald, so you did, then you got the Herald to help out and possess you so they believed you. You really are fine, though.
>[2] Tell Richard the broad strokes of what happened. You told them you were the Herald, and now they believe you. His plan worked.
>[3] Tell him not to worry about it. If he hears about the Herald and all that, he could get really weird about it, and if you're evasive, he'll just ask more questions. Best to leave him in the dark.
>[4] Write-in.

>Announcements
Welcome back to Drowned Quest Redux! I don't have anything to share publicly, but I've been chipping away at some backend prep-- you'll see the fruits of it someday. Otherwise, I'm excited to close out Headspace... with a... bang :^)

Also, CuriousCat seems to be down. I don't know if this is a temporary outage or a permanent one, but I have all the AMA drawings on my computer, so if it's gone for good the only loss is the questions I never got around to. When I'm next wanting to work on those, I'll set up an inbox somewhere else, and you're welcome to resubmit there.

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

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

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

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

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

>Archive (nicer)
1-4: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-IhGrvvy5DAGXpk1VWBeSLN19IIDjP4YnUjroUEplDo/edit?usp=sharing
5-9: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BFsue8klDevUAuCvVb2V3ktsBvdvYmAhGIDhhscKHDE/edit?usp=sharing
10-14: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NFrr6hT9Ho8ThW-n86zqzf9SxTzya65c2XRBSaWZIhU/edit?usp=sharing
15-19: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XE8ygoN6nWucvZEqmBeoQ9jKNdc6V_FOvrrIitRi3dU/edit?usp=sharing
20-April Fools: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NqCgQYDq5NajT36m9dxkpZE85mqMMjClsz-gu9FYKtQ/edit?usp=sharing
25-29: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11aZ013qySgw0wWawb2SHra3ExtJrs6FLQaCp9S7udUU/edit?usp=sharing
30-34: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1COMiZB7lKEu756_CS-lfaID2oMtHVMGBVLjXrXmMBHQ/edit?usp=sharing
35-38: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZkI18l-PNI7i-HQdQmqTJJvUM-iLKBBCNpvSC-POhk0/edit?usp=sharing
39-42: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1asjG0cNqn1nlyqoxHxr5nV6BiIHu2YAFS6LhZR5zjkw/edit?usp=sharing

>Twitter
https://twitter.com/BathicQM

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

>Recaps [updated!]
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VPJwXzTpv4lO_t6R3jA32NLbKjdIZjtJlRFsWQgBMnM/edit?usp=sharing

>Ask the characters (or the QM), get a drawn response eventually
https://curiouscat.live/BathicQM [? might be down]

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

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


--


>LAST TIME ON DROWNED QUEST REDUX

You're Charlotte Fawkins. You're touring Headspace's "Edutainment Facility" in the body of Ramsey's evil lackey, Everard Kurz, alongside Casey and a brainwashed Gil... except Gil snaps out of his brainwashing, punches Casey in the face, and takes off to parts unknown. Whoops. Also, Virginia, whose body you vacated, has been shot in the head with a crossbow bolt. As Everard, you chew out Casey for his incompetence; Casey, angry and embarassed, wipes your memory.

You awaken, still in Everard's body, with no memory of anything since you jumped out of the window with Gil. Casey introduces you to a Manager he dubs "Jerry." Jerry isn't happy to be here, but he dutifully (and cagily) answers a few questions, before Casey continues the tour inside a psychological torture chamber. Only... somebody's shot the prisoner inside with a crossbow. Ellery! You spot him invisibly fleeing the chamber, and Casey and Jerry semi-successfully stop him from going very far-- but Ellery shoots a *flaming* crossbow bolt in response, sparking a large fire. You discover that Everard has a knob in his neck, and when you turn it, water comes out of your mouth. Rather than use this to put out the fire, you invoke the Law [SINK] to trap Ellery in a deep pit and jump in after him.

Inside the pit, Ellery corners and threatens you. You reveal that you're actually Charlotte, and he relents, but he isn't happy to see you: he's come to blow up himself and Headspace, and he doesn't want to be stopped. He accuses you of having weird narrative-bending powers again, but now he's come up with a reason for it-- he thinks that Management is watching over you or influencing you somehow. When you tell him they aren't, he tells you that Richard is probably Management. He says off-handedly that if he tried to shoot you, Management (or something) wouldn't let it happen.

He prepares to leave, but you tell him to wait. You're oddly compelled by the idea you might survive a point-blank shot, and after some coaxing, Ellery actually does it. He shoots you. You relive a childhood memory with your father in it-- er, with Richard in it. He's back, and he's saved you, though Everard is dying. Richard chews you out (politely) and denies that he's Management, though he admits he's not a snake but a secret other thing. Management may be that other thing, too. He helps you escape the now-corpse you're inside, though he has to stay behind, so he doesn't get squished into your brain. He's still able to communicate, though.

Now in a fragile facsimile of your own body, you spook Ellery, who's relieved you're alive. He escapes by jumping through a puddle in the floor. You follow him into a mind-bending mirror dimension and quickly lose his trail, needing Richard's help to get you back on track. Eventually, you leave, winding up back in the halls of the Edutainment Facility. Your path is blocked by a mass of alligators. (Ellery's let all the prisoners/test subjects out.) No problem for you: you sprint past them and straight into Gil-- and Anthea, who's traveling with him. You're both excited to see each other, and you go in for a retainerly hug with Gil.

Oops! Gil's blessing is hyperactivated, and you're full of red stuff. You're immediately barraged with murder urges, which you shake off barely long enough to sprint out of there again. Your red stuff-enhanced speed allows you to catch up with Ellery, who's trying to sweet-talk his way past a Friend barricade. He spots you and escapes, and you sweet-talk the Friends instead, exiting... right into Casey's clutches. Nope! You turn around and try again, this time exiting into Management's central office.

Management is unsurprised to see you: having read your mind back in Thread 38, they know you're a "client" of Correspondent #314, i.e. Richard. Apparently they know Richard, though Richard continues to claim he doesn't know them. He wants you out of there ASAP. You refuse, and instead follow his instructions to tell Management that you're "the Herald"-- the lizard-thing. Management laughs in your face.

Before you can get into it, though, they get distracted: Ellery has doubled around to ambush Casey, and apparently he's winning the fight. In the commotion, you use the gulfweed Henry gave you to psychically contact the real Herald, who promises to help. Via possessing you. In your body, the Herald tells a suddenly deferential Management to take you to the center of Headspace, though it's unable to convince them to evacuate the employees.

>TO-DO

Immediate goals:
- Find Gil (again (again))
- Find a way to harvest your memories of Annie
- Get the siphons back from Casey, then put them up (12 remaining?)
- Get the tine of the Crown back from Casey
- Find out what happened to Lester? (optional)

Short-term goals:
- Punish Casey for his cruel brainwashing of YOUR retainer
- Blow up Headspace

Long-term goals:
- Resurrect Annie
- Return Claudia
- Regain your missing memories (...if possible)
- Attend your richly deserved Game Night
- Use, extract, or otherwise deal with the Wyrm stuff you got going on
- Find Jean Ramsey and her snake; challenge her to epic single combat (probably); reclaim the Crown
- In the meantime, continue collecting and storing Law (4/16)
- Make friends (who are not named Gil)

Mysteries:
- Who or what is Namway Co. and Headspace Corp.'s “Management”? What did they want with the clone of a snake? What do they want with a massive store of Law? If they're snakes... what does that mean?
- What kind of company(?) does Richard work for? What is its endgame? What does it want with you? What is its relationship with Management? (Is Management also a snake... company?)
- Who is Horse Face investigating, and why?
- Who wiped three years of your life from your memory? Why? Can Richard really not remember them either?
- What is the Herald? Why does it keep showing up? What does it want? Where is it supposed to be? What are you supposed to forgive yourself for, exactly? (You haven't done anything wrong!)
- When is the world going to end? How?
- Do you have a destiny? Is it God-related? It's a good destiny, surely?
- Why does Richard keep developing stab wounds?
- If Richard isn't a snake, or anything else, what the hell is he?
- Why does Management know Richard by name? (Or mean nickname, at least?)

--

>Don't forget to scroll up and vote!

>>6136430
>>[2] Tell Richard the broad strokes of what happened. You told them you were the Herald, and now they believe you. His plan worked.

>>6136430
>1
What could possibly go wrong

>>6136430
>[1] Tell Richard exactly what happened. He told you to tell them you were the Herald, so you did, then you got the Herald to help out and possess you so they believed you. You really are fine, though.

Welcome back, folks! I'll leave the vote open overnight, but I may call it during the day tomorrow. We'll see how I'm feeling.

>>6136430
>[1] Tell Richard exactly what happened. He told you to tell them you were the Herald, so you did, then you got the Herald to help out and possess you so they believed you. You really are fine, though.

>>6136443
>>6136446
>>6136591
>[1]

>>6136441
>[2]

Called for [1] and writing. Slim chance I won't finish-- if so, it's because I spent the rest of the day writing a vignette, so expect that pretty soon!

>>6137060
Actually, thinking about it, the vignette is divided into sections-- so maybe I'll split it up and post bits of it when I can't update for real. Still aiming to update for real tonight, of course, but it's nice to have something to fill future gaps.

>Pure and honest

Richard told you to do this, so he was probably expecting what happened. He just wasn't expecting to be cut off. That makes sense. No reason to hide anything. Ahem. Well, Richard, they didn't believe you at first— he was there for that bit. But he told you to hold fast, so you did, and you decided to ask the actual Herald for help, and it did help, and it took over your body a little bit and told the Managers they were chumps. And now you're straight off to blowing up Headspace. Pretty good, right?

«...»
«What do you mean by the 'actual Herald'?»

Um. Well, he told you to say you're the Herald, but you're not. That's a lie. But there has been a big lizard in your dreams calling itself the Herald, so you figure that's the Herald, and you thought since it's been nice to you it might pitch in here. And it did. Or she, maybe. You're still not sure if it's a girl or not.

«And this 'actual Herald'— it came into your body?»

Yuck! Why does he have to put it like that? It possessed you, like he does, and it sort of knocked you out, like he also does, but it's nice, so it let you remember what it was doing. And it didn't do anything with your body except talk to the Managers. Oh, and... uh... okay, it did something with your good eye, but you can see fine out of it right now, so it obviously didn't break anything. It put it back all politely.

«It took it out?»

You're remembering that maybe it coughed up that sun you swallowed— Ellery's sun, formerly— it coughed it up and replaced your eyeball with it. But it's a manse, so it wasn't even your real eyeball. You could probably do the same exact thing if you wanted to.

«Yes.»
«...»
«...»

Does that answer all his questions?

«I'm not sure.»

Oh. In a good way or a bad way? Is he mad? It's hard to tell when you can't look at him.

«No. I am not angry.»
«...»
«I feel lucky to have you around, primrose. I think you will achieve great things very soon.»

Oh. Thanks! You too!

>[+1 ID: 6/14]

Speaking of great things soon to come, you're still on your way down. Rather than take the door you came in from, the Managers loaded you into a cylindrical elevator. Cons: you're literally shoulder-to-shoulder with them, which still makes you nervous, no matter how much the Herald worked the crowed. Pros: the walls are clear, so you can see outside from all angles. Cons: your view is blocked by a huge mass of pipes, tubes, and wires, all of which begin above the Management office and feed through and below it. Below you is their endpoint. Pros: you suspect that's exactly where you're going.

Beyond all the stuff in the way, you can see the wide loop of the staircase, though Ellery and Casey— if they're still up there— aren't in view. Below that are the white cubes you saw earlier. Each of them is relatively large, larger than the elevator, with a narrow gridded catwalk running between. They are all very white— not painted white, not colored white, but an acrid, glowing, absent white.

(1/2)

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"?????," one of the Managers— slicked-back hair, curved sunglasses, sideburns— snakes at you. You look blankly back. He pauses, exchanges glances with his neighbors, and tries again. "Ahem. Sunbringer?"

Huh? Oh, you. "Yes?"

"What is your opinion on what you see?"

Damnit. Do you need to sound Herald-y? Or will anything you say sound Herald-y, given the talk they just got? Probably the second one, unless you really blow it. "What's in those cubes?"

"The cubes? They are..." Sideburns thinks, touches his lips, mutters to himself. "I don't know how to say it to you, Sunbringer. They are... prisms?"

"????," says his neighbor, the Manager (formerly) in front. "I would say 'generators.'"

"Paper-presses," a third says, to hissing laughter. "Learned Herald, they— do you know all the states of reality?"

Oh, God, you're being quizzed? Richard has talked about this, though. There's the normal one, and the kind the ocean is, and the kind manses are, and the kind the void is. You think. Oh! And the kind real glass is. Five kinds. "Yes!"

"As you must. The cubes are— I think it is— 'extra-real.' They are containers of extra-reality."

Extra-reality. It sounds familiar. Is that the kind glass is? You are recalling long-ago experiments with shards of Ellery, and your skin, and— wait! Paper-presses! "The kind that sucks the reality out of—"

"Yes. By its nature it attracts Law to itself, and extracts it from others. It does so cleanly and purely. We are in great need of purified Law, so you may understand the resulting extent of our operations."

"...Yes." The elevator is descending through the middle of the cubes now. The ones in the distance look like lit-up windows, the ones even further like stars. There's a thousand of them, dead minimum. Maybe more.

These "paper-presses", you are becoming certain, are what lurk in the bottom of Headspace manses. They're what people get trapped in. No wonder they die so horribly, if they're stuck in the equivalent of cubes of glass— there's a reason the real stuff, the true stuff, is banned. Eugh. Ellery must've visited a couple dozen of these, the long way around, but there's no way Management couldn't fill them up faster than he could clear them.

"If they extract Law," you say delicately, "what do they extract it from?"

"Waste product, Eternalness. The mechanism is extremely clever." The Manager pauses. "If I may say so."

Waste product. Is she lying? Or is that how they actually see it? You suppose they "replace" the people they take, so it could be legitimate, in a horrible snake-y way. But still! How villainous! You look forward to blowing them up in short order. Can you even wait that long?

(Choices next.)

>[1] Bite your tongue. You haven't actually asked the Herald whether she approves of secret mass-Law-extraction torture-prisons. Maybe she would? You really don't want to blow it. (-1 ID.)
>[2] Try to cajole the Managers into admitting that they're running torture-prisons for sapient people. If you seem implicitly judgmental enough, maybe they'll repent? [Roll.]
>[3] Would a heroine restrain herself from addressing evil? Speak out! This is abhorrent! You, the confirmed Herald of the Bright Epoch, do not approve one little bit. [Roll.]
>[4] Write-in.

>>6137083
>[4] Ask about the safety of those cubes and the potential effects of a big Law leak
Both to know and to stop ourselves from saying something we can regret

>>6137083
>2
Also >>6137101
we gotta be cool here
The Herald did us a solid and we shouldn’t blow her messiah reputation in return

>[2] Try to cajole the Managers into admitting that they're running torture-prisons for sapient people. If you seem implicitly judgmental enough, maybe they'll repent? [Roll.]

>>6137083
>[3] Would a heroine restrain herself from addressing evil? Speak out! This is abhorrent! You, the confirmed Herald of the Bright Epoch, do not approve one little bit. [Roll.]
I would vote [2], but Charlotte doesn't cajole.

>>6137265
>>6137137
>>6137101
>[2]

>>6137137
>>6137101
>[4]

>>6137291
>[3]

Called for [2] + [4]. I need dice.

>Please roll me 3 1d100s + 15 (+30 HERALD, -15 Herald In Hiding) vs. DC 70 (+20 Defensive) to get Management to admit its evil scheme!

Spend 1 ID for +10 to all rolls?
>[1] Y
>[2] N

Rolled 94 + 15 (1d100 + 15)

>>6137467
Y

Rolled 73 + 15 (1d100 + 15)

>>6137467
>No spendy
Not with that 94

Rolled 38 (1d100)

>>6137467
>NN

>>6137471
>>6137475
>>6137556
>109, 88, 53 vs. DC 70 -- Success
>No spendy

Nice. Update... tomorrow.

>What?
Sorry! Early morning tomorrow + had to get some work done tonight. That being said... >>6137063 ...I'll start posting chunks of that vignette, so at least you guys have something to read. See you in a sec.

For full clarity, folks: this is a vignette, not an update. I originally wrote it to be Pastebin'd, but since it ended up very long and usefully modular I'm using it as filler for days without real updates. Because it's a vignette, it has no bearing on the current plot (directly or otherwise), and it has no vote options attached. It takes place "recently," broadly speaking, but not necessarily "right now." Clear? All good? Good!

----


>NIGHTMARES I

A man clad in red. A man clad in white.
The man in white is here, in the dark, at the tapestry.
The woman in front of you is missing half her face.
You are strangling Ellery with your bare hands.
You are on the shore of a vast ocean.
It is night. You are seated on a rooftop.
You are floating in warm water.
You fall like a vase and are smashed into sharp glazed pieces.
You are sitting at a table in the Better Than Nothing.
The current rages on outside the ruined pagan temple.
You are lounging by the side of a swimming pool with a book and a glass of lemonade.
Gil leaving you forever to go fishing—-
Lucky mistaking you for a worm and slicing you in two—-
Richard coming back, but you fixed him too well, and he's nasty and angry again—-
A gaping open wound in your chest, so big you can climb inside and—-
It's okay.
I love you.
I forgive you.
It's not your fault, Charlie.
It's okay.

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>NIGHTMARES II

You are in your bed. Your wife is not there. Her side of the bed is warm, like she just left it, and you look over to the window to see her looking out it, like she likes to do when she can't sleep. Her long hair shining and her satin nightgown blue in the light. Your wife is not by the window.

Your bedroom is large and expensive, as is your bed, as is your window. You have money and little interesting to spend it on. Your wife spends it and it makes her happy to spend it and it makes you happy to see her happy. It is one of the few things that makes you happy. Your wife is nowhere in your large expensive bedroom.

"Connie?" Your voice is odd. You sound underwater. "Are you there?"

Nothing. The door is cracked, and the hallway is bright. Electric lights. State-of-the-art. She's probably taking a piss, you think, so it's for no reason that you swing under your bed and grab the revolver. Nobody expects you to own one, and you get it: it's not your "thing." But what you'd tell them, if they asked, is that tridents aren't a practical weapon. The Game is a game. Real life is real life. And in real life, whatever your talents, you'd rather have a gun.

You touch your bare feet to the shag rug and stand. You creep up on the door and peer through. Bright and empty. You shimmy through the crack, revolver outstretched, and press yourself to the wall, and scan again. Bright and empty. You slide against the wall until you reach a junction, then swivel both ways, revolver-first. Empty and empty. The doors at both ends of the hallway are shut.

This is where you should go back to bed, where you would go back to bed, if you didn't feel it— in your gut first, your chest second. A tightening and a quickening. Something's wrong. You have lived this long by trusting your instincts, and you have lived this long by not being hasty. You take a breath to still your hands. You close your eyes to open your mind. To the left, toward your living room, are subtle noises: thudding, scratching, rustling. A mouse in the walls.

Or your wife. You lower the revolver, step around the corner, brace yourself, and barrel shoulder-first toward the living room door. It is unlocked and it cracks and swings open on impact. It doesn't hurt as you crash through, or else the hurt is swallowed by the rush and the flail for the light switch and the sting of the light and your revolver straight out at your wife and at Jean. Jean is in black.

"Let go of her or I'll fucking shoot," you say.

"Always so crabby, Montgomery." Jean is as unbothered as ever. She has one gloved hand over your wife's mouth (your wife is gripping her arm) and one clutching a mask. The mask. "You'll never learn to lighten up, will you?"

"Let go of her or I'll fucking shoot," you say.

"No can do. Look, it's not that complicated. You wanted her back to life, didn't you?"

You adjust your grip. "She—"

"She died, pal. You let her die. But I fixed it!" Jean pats your wife's shoulder. "Just like we talked about. Only trouble is, there's still a vacancy, isn't there? Somebody's been shirking."

"That's—"

"Hey, I'm not finished. What I'm saying is, I did you a solid, and now you've gotta do me a solid. I know you're not coming back, so— you know— gotta fill the spot with somebody, right? I always liked her, you know. Real nice lady. I'm sure she'll do fine."

Your wife and the mask. Your wife in the mask. "You're psychotic."

"Montgomery..." Jean sighs exaggeratedly. "...I'm practical. You're the one with a screw loose, you realize? Which one of us cracked under the pressure? Don't think it was me."

"It was the only sane—"

"Really? The only one? Didn't see anybody else..." She mimes a pair of legs walking, walking, plummeting. She whistles, high to low. "I tried to help out, but you just wouldn't budge. Felt pretty sorry about it, I gotta say. That being said, a vacancy's a vacancy— unless you're offering? Door's always open."

"And Constance?" you say.

"Huh? So little faith! She'd be fine. I said I liked her. Geez."

Honesty is one of Jean's few virtues. You clench your teeth. You're running hot. The mask, the mask, the mask. Jean's broad untroubled mask of a face. Your wife's eyes. Connie's steady cool brown eyes are trained on you. Imperceptibly, she shakes her head.

You move and she reads your movement and wrests downwards as you pull the trigger and blast Jean Ramsey's head into million red pieces and it ends, it ends, it ends, it's over, you wake up with your wife in your bed and the sun in the window, but you can't. Because you are in hell, and half of Jean's face is missing, and the other half is smiling. "Come on."

You shoot her again and she sways but keeps standing. You shoot her again and again and again and again after that, and then you are out of bullets, and there's a glowing-white crown on her busted-through head. "That's not very sporting," she says, and points. The revolver flies out of your hand and into hers. "Not even your weapon. Really!"

"Would my weapon have killed you?" you say.

"Ha! No! Nothing can." She touches the crown with half a hand. "Thanks for the help, there, pal. Wish I had you on board. Got a buncha chucklefucks instead. But I know how you feel about it, so I didn't ask. Oh well. Good effort."

She stretches her arm out and a dozen black arms fly out and grab your fleeing wife and shove the mask onto her. She struggles, then goes limp. Jean lets you watch, then she raises your revolver, inspects it, cleans it off on her robes, and shoots. The impact slams you through your living room's large expensive window, off your balcony, into the air. You hang there for a minute. Then you fall a long, long way.

You don't die. If you die, it's a good dream. When you hit the water you wake face-up, on your cot, which fits one person. You had to shove two together, once.

Hell.

>>6137731
Dang, worrying

>>6137718
Back at it and writing.

File: scalpel hand.jpg (93 KB, 427x640)

93 KB JPG

>Hey so um well er about that
>109, 88, 53 vs. DC 70 — Success

"I see." Come on. You can do it. Be polite. Be regal. Be Herald-y. "Waste product sourced from where exactly?"

"Both the from manufacturing process and from waste within the company, Herald." It's the white-haired Manager. "It cuts down on redundancies significantly."

Waste within the company? The "downsizing." You thought they were just mulching the employees they didn't like (those they didn't brainwash), but that wouldn't be efficient, would it? God. "And why are there redundancies to begin with?"

Sideburns clears his throat. "It's a natural—"

"Eternalness, have you ever observed the manner in which our little nephews operate?" The Manager in front interjects so smoothly that Sideburns can only glare. "It is chaos. It is entirely out of keeping with our— with our methods. They hardly know up from down. Being as you are in such a... khhassis, you must have had to grapple with such deep limitations. Now multiply by thousands. It is miraculous that we have purged so many inefficiencies as we have."

Damnit! She's a smooth talker. Richard, how should you get Management to admit they're putting people's brains in torture-prison? Plus locitising them?

«Don't. You are not on stable ground, primrose.»
«There will be ample time to gloat later. I assure you, I want it as badly as you.»

See? He never trusts you. You're not gloating— you want to make them squirm! Subtly! Doesn't he like subtle? Maybe your problem is that you're being too subtle. "Er, I can only imagine. I see that there are many hundreds of these 'prisms,' though. Would it not be more efficient to store all the waste in one large one?"

"You are ingenious, Learned One, but it isn't quite so. One large container would be sufficient if the waste could be compacted together to fit. Unfortunately, compaction would hinder the extraction of the Law."

A-ha. "And why is that?"

"It would be careless," Sideburns says. "A finite amount would rapidly be extracted, but no more could be produced therein. If the waste is kept living, less is extracted at once, but more is generated over time— and we are not in any enormous rush. What?"

He is being glared at. The others have caught the slip. So have you. "Living? It comes from the living? I thought you said it was waste."

Only the rattle of elevator. Then, says White Hair: "It is, Herald. It is byproduct. The duplicates would only be destroyed; they are put to use instead. The redundancies would only be disposed of; it is that same for them. It is, as mentioned, a clever process."

"And it is put to good use, Eternalness."

"Yes. It is for the greater good." White Hair inclines his head. "The greatest good."

(1/2)

That's not squirming. That's a full-throated defense of torture-killnapping. You frown. "The waste is people."

"Generous One, they are not—" (You fold your arms.) "They are hardly people. As you know, they are closely related to animals. They are not capable of reason in the same way we are. This is the established notion, not borne of prejudice, but taken from incalculable attempts to correspond with..."

Richard. "Was I corresponded with?" you say.

Oops! More elevator noise, as the Managers shuffle and look at their nails. Then hasty conversation in Snakeish (or whatever), then, finally, the halting response. "Er, Great Herald, it would seem... we must speak to Correspondent #314. When time allows. We forgot, briefly, that you are yourself contained within a client, and that this may, er..."

"Am I not a person?"

"No," one says, as another says "You are more, Herald," as a third mutters something. You lean forward. "What was that?"

Sideburns looks guilty. "Sunbringer, have you not accessed a more enlightened view of—?"

"Enlightened? In that I ought to think that human beings are not people? And even if they were not, that they are not deserving of— of kindness? And fair treatment?" You toss your head. "That's—"

«Rein it back.»

You thought he couldn't hear?

«I can't. I know you. Rein it back.»

...Fine. You could go on a heroic tirade, but it'll be much more satisfying to blow them all up, and you can't do that if they catch you out. "—that simply isn't true. I suggest you reconsider. All of you."

It's not just Sideburns: all the Managers have gone frowny. From one little admonishment, not even your whole tirade. Geez. Richard is really going to have to elaborate on the Herald's whole deal later. "Yes, Herald." "Understood, Herald." "Sorry, Great One." "We didn't know you... cared. If you'd shown yourself earlier..."

"I showed myself exactly on time," you say, and permit yourself an additional hair toss. It works to hide your smirk.

>[+1 ID: 7/14]

—

>[1] Any additional questions for the Managers (or Richard?) before you disembark the elevator? >>6137101 will be included already. (Write-in.)
>[2] Continue.

Sorry for the dearth of options, but it took me a while to disentangle this part of the update and it'd take even longer to write to a proper turning point. I don't feel like staying up until 5 AM, so throw me some write-ins or spam the fast-forward and we'll get back to it tomorrow.

>>6138215
>[1] So if the cubes are for extraction, where's the Law storage?

>>6138215
>1
What if as we say things to the Managers we repeat them to Richard in our head, and when Managers reply we think it over to him so it's like he can hear.

>>6138216
Neat. Added to the list and writing in a while.

>>6138453
This is possible in theory, but you'd have to pause for a weird/noticeable amount of time after every sentence to convey it to Richard, and it'd make it tough for you to follow the conversation (since you'd be more focused on repeating than on comprehending). You'd likely be better off conveying important things to him, rather than everything-- if you have something in mind you want him to comment on, now or in the future, feel free to share.

>>6138647
>tfw we're a slow thinker
:(

Richard question: he says he doesn't know these guys, but how come they know him and even that you're his client? Is he snake famous?

>>6138216
Supporting this question.

>>6138648
>tfw we're a slow thinker
It's Richard's fault, not yours. Normally, he's hanging out directly in your brain, so he has rapid access to what you're seeing/hearing/planning on a preverbal level and doesn't need you to articulate it. With him cloistered away, he's lost that access, so he mostly only gets what you consciously choose to share, and consciously sharing is what takes time. Think of the difference between reading this paragraph and reading this paragraph out loud in your mind, and then think about "reading out loud" a full conversation while you're having it. It'd be rough even for a very intelligent person, which Charlotte is... not (she's not dumb, but she's not that bright, either).

>how come they know him and even that you're his client? Is he snake famous?
From last thread, Richard claims that he has a "certain reputation." You're of course welcome to press him on it further, though I may or may not be able to wedge it into this update-- if I don't get around to it soon, though, please feel free to remind me.

File: sun 7.jpg (31 KB, 550x433)

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>Gimme the specs

Now that that's settled... well, now you would like to gloat, but Richard's right that it's still too early. You get to gloat after things are blown up. Maybe the Managers can help with that. "Regardless, it is how it is. You have gone far afield, and it is too late to return. I presume there is no way to destroy these containers?"

"They are indestructible, Herald. They have no physical existence."

"Oh. I see." Damnit. "How are they generated? Is it from one central location? Is the Law they collect stored in some central location?"

"Look below you, Eternalness." The Managers press themselves against the walls of the elevator, clearing an open space. With them out of the way, you can see straight through the floor. Below your feet are tubes and pipes and wires, and below them is a massive celestial sphere: hard and cratered as the moon, red-bright as the sun, hovering and blinking and buzzing. All the tubes and pipes and wires feed into it, or else out of it, or else drop their contents— a blizzard of punch-paper, a waterfall of ticker-tape— into far-distant slots in its surface. You are wondering if the rumble of the elevator is really the elevator.

"What is it?" you say. Something picks at the corners of your mind, but you can't place it.

"The Mark II," says a Manager.
"It is the BrainWyrm. Our brainkhhild."
"It is the god in the machine, Herald."
"It is an egg."
"It is you."

You gaze into the mirrored lenses of the last Manager who spoke. You, pale-faced, dead-eyed, gaze back. "Me?"

"It is the Bright Epoch, heralded. It has been waiting for you. You said it yourself: you have come exactly on time."

"Um... okay." If you ask too many questions, you're pretty sure it'll look like you don't know what you're supposed to know. Even if you don't. "So all the Law gets stored in there?"

"Not stored, Great One. Consumed and re-emitted."

"Oh." To do what? End the world? "What if it were all re-emitted? Like... what if the whole thing exploded?"

Is it your imagination, or does the rumble intensify? The Managers crowd closer together. Not one of them doesn't look stormy. "Why do you say such a thing?"

«Charlie. Status report.»

Not now. You're trying not to make them mad. You swallow. "The— that man. The one that's too tall. And sort of scruffy, and, um— oh. He doesn't have a face right now. That one. I spoke to him, and he told me that was his intention."

"Ah." Most of them relax. "The intruder."

"That was your experiment, wasn't it, #20? The dual-state?"

White Hair picks at his matching white teeth. "A joint effort. Resoundingly successful, Herald."

"Too successful. Now it's gotten ideas."

(1/3?)

"Not that it's of any concern, Eternalness," the Manager in front placates you. "We assure you, there is no conceivable way the intruder will cause lasting damage— to us, to you, to the BrainWyrm. It is not capable of such a thing. It is better to allow it to think it's making progress."

"I see," you say. You wish you knew if that were true.

«Status report. Please.»

You turn your gaze back outside. The white cubes are sliding away; the red light intensifies. The Managers told you that all the Law they collect from their torture prisons goes to a big egg, or something. A sphere. The BrainWyrm?

«No it doesn't.»

Yes it does. That's what they said. And there's a big sphere right there, so.

«Impossible. They couldn't—»
«It must be—»
«You are still inside Headspace.»

Yes? The very, very bottom of it.

«Then it cannot be the BrainWyrm.»

Um, why not? Why would they lie? They still think you're the Herald, for his information. They called it the Mark II, and the BrainWyrm, and—

«Ah. A Mark II.»
«...»
«...»

It seems very much like Richard knows things he's not telling you about. Like maybe who the Management is? And what they're doing? Considering that they know him.

«I— I suspect they know of me. They don't know me.»
«Similarly, I do not know them.»

But he knows of them?

«Tell me if they mentioned numbers.»

Um... any numbers?

«Sure. Yes.»

One of them just said 20? And earlier, one of them said... you forget. 30-something? Wait, is that their names? Since he's Correspondent—

«Not names.»
«I may know of them. Not precisely them. But of what they may be.»

Which he's going to share, right? Richard? With you, his beloved-ish daughter-ish, the Herald of the Bright Whatever? Since he's done with lying to you.

«I am.»
«But that does not mean I must share everything, Charlie. What they are doesn't matter. It has no bearing on the present task. To even begin discussing it, I would be forced to explain many things at great length, <distracting> you from said task.»
«That is the truth. When this is over, when you are safe, we can have a conversation. Not sooner. Please trust me on this.»

It kind of sounds like he's lying. Maybe that's how his voice always sounds, because he lies so much, and because he spent so long being mean to you. You don't know, Richard. After this ends, you're getting the rundown.

«Yes.»

With the chalkboard and the extendable pointer and the diagrams and everything. You mean it. The complete rundown. No lies.

«I think I can accommodate. Now please. Attention outward.»

(2/3)

You turn your attention outward and squint against the light. Is this why the Managers have their sunglasses? None of them seem bothered. None of them bat an eyelash when the elevator judders and squeals to a halt, or when the doors slide open and a vast hum enters. Outside the doors is a smooth white walkway. Beyond it, straight ahead, is the sphere. How tall is it, how wide, how long? Surely hundreds of feet in all directions. It dwarfs you and the Managers alike.

"After you, Great Herald," they say, and you exit, and you feel it, the hum all through your body, and a faint but perceptible tug. The sphere wants you closer. You step forward to allow the Managers out, and they come.

The walkway runs straight from the elevator toward the sphere, but when it gets close, it breaks off and runs around it in a circle. There is a railing between it and the sphere, which you're already glad for. The elevator-walkway is not the only entrance to the circle-walkway— instead, a ways to your left, a flight of stairs leads up and spirals out of sight. Somebody is on that flight of stairs. Two people, one wide, one narrow. The latter directly behind the former. Casey and Ellery. Does Ellery have Casey at crossbow-point? If he does... you can't imagine that being enough to keep Casey docile. And where did the other Managers go? Something's off.

Your pack of Managers follows your gaze. One snakes something to another. They don't move— yet. Do you want them to?

>[1] Yes. Ellery's here. You need to stop him. The Managers need to stop him, too, and they're bound to follow your lead. Plus, they have useful snake-y powers. There's no downside here.
>[2] No. Ellery is your business. You brought him here, and you'll make him leave. Request that the Managers stay put. [Roll.]
>[3] No. Ellery is your quarry. You loosed him here, and you'll hunt him down. Command the Managers to stay put. [-1 SV.]
>[4] Write-in.

>>6138789
>[4] Let him distract the Managerndxdms, but not us.

>>6138789
>1
Remember no undue cruelty
Also yeah like >>6138801 says let them handle it while we take a closer look at the mark 2

>[1] Yes. Ellery's here. You need to stop him. The Managers need to stop him, too, and they're bound to follow your lead. Plus, they have useful snake-y powers. There's no downside here.

File: nightmares III.jpg (77 KB, 564x1002)

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Sorry, folks. Real update tomorrow. But the NIGHTMARES continue..

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>>6137731

>NIGHTMARES III

They devised a new execution method. You thought this was gullshit, and said so. As it turns out, you don't have much of a say.

It is mid-afternoon and blisteringly hot, which you were okay with, given (you thought) the ocean would be nice and cold. Cold enough to put you in shock, is what you heard, so you wouldn't feel it, and privately you'd prefer not to feel it. You also heard it'd split you like a ripe tomato on contact, splat!, which'd be okay too. Some poor fuckers could fish up your skull and have a spook. You liked that.

Not this. Asshole #1, all cheekbones, points at an empty matchbox lying on the ground. "In."

"What?" you say. "Are you fucking with me?"

"No." Asshole #2, the one behind you, prods you forward. "In."

"That's—" They're definitely fucking with you. "You know you can gib me the regular way, right? It'd save a lot of time."

"In," Asshole #1, says, voice flat. "In," Asshole #2 says, and prods. You, arms tied, stumble forward.

"Is this a humiliation thing? Because I kind of get it, but there's got to be— I mean— it doesn't seem that humiliating? It just seems... uh... look, I don't even know what you're asking for. You want me to stick my toe in that?" You squint. "I could probably fit a toe, but that— I mean— whatever floats your boat? But—"

"In."
"In."

"This is fucking weird, right?" you appeal to the audience. "Are you guys getting anything out of this? Because I don't... uh..."

Your voice dies, because there's less audience than you expected. Maybe they all left when they saw they switched the method. All it is is Mom and Dad and Ash. When you meet their eyes, they all look down.

"Well, fuck you too," you say limply, then "Ow!" (You've been prodded forward again.) "Chill out! I'll stick my toe in, or whatever. Then will you kill me all regular?"

Another prod answers your question. You're standing right in front of the matchbox. Is there something about it you're not seeing? Nope. It's a matchbox. They don't have it up on a fancy little platform or anything. You sigh. "Whatever! Go piss in the wind, or— whatever. Here."

You slide your foot out of your sandal, meet Asshole #1's black eyes, and tap your big toe into the open bit of the matchbox. Then you scream.

File: Spoiler Image (201 KB, 640x426)

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In! In! In! No escaping now: it has you, whether you fit or not, maybe especially because you don't. You couldn't possibly. But you must, so in you go, crunching at first, shriveling and compacting, but that can't account for all of it, so you're sloughing off too, clothes and hair and gore mounding up where you were, screaming, because your mouth is the last to go; screaming, because you still can scream, even while you're all at right angles, even while the color drains, the numbness creeps; screaming until your skull cracks and your brain leaks into the last little gaps and the box slams shut on whatever it is you are. It's that slamming motion that wakes you, not your actual real-life screaming, which you guess you're used to.

You shut your dry mouth. Fuck. Fuck, that was... goddammit. You're whole. Of course you are, because that was poor dumbfuck scaredy Dream You, who can't remember what year it is. Stupid bitch. They can't re-execute you. And it wasn't like that— it didn't melt all the flesh off you, when it happened. Maybe it felt a tiny bit like that, but it didn't really happen. Obviously. You're still here. So's Matches, curled around your big toe.

Fuck. If you try going back to sleep, it'll be the same or worse. Your brain's real inventive, but you wish it shook up the genre a bit. Whatever. Everybody knows the night screaming's you. If they say anything out of turn, you tell them it's the noise their mom made when you fucked her, and that usually shuts it up. You sit up, rub your eyes, and reach around behind your cot for the stash. Camp's supposed to be dry, per Monty, but Monty likes you, and he knows you're not getting hammered or anything. You pull out a canteen and shake it to make sure it's full. Yes. Good. You screw it open and take a hearty swig. Then another for good measure. Then you cough a bit, but only a bit.

You're no pussy, but this isn't what you'd drink for fun. That's fine. It's medicine, basically. Kills the dreams in their cradle. You don't feel good the morning after, but do you ever feel good any morning after? Ha. You screw the canteen back up and re-stash it, then lay back. Fuck you, dreams. Fuck you, Dream You. You're still the boss here, no matter how often you need to prove it.

>END III

>>6139329
Dang the surface is pretty messed up too

>>6138801
>>6138901
>>6139176
>[1]
>[4]

You'll attempt to check out the Mk II while the Managers take care of Ellery. We'll see how it goes.

Writing.

>Delegate

Yes. What does Ellery want? He says he wants to blow up Headspace. He says he wants to die. Not those. He said something else back there in that pit. He said he wanted to be important. Or he didn't say that, but that's what he meant. He locked himself in prison because he wanted to save Madrigal and feel important, and that didn't go so well, so now he wants to blow himself up and feel important, even though it wouldn't help, even though it'd be 100% worse than your plan. (You haven't heard him talk about evacuating anybody.) And it only makes sense: he's not cut out for it. He's not a famous heroine. He's a dirty skinny annoying stupid bastard, and all he's good for is ruining his own life. He can't even manage to ruin yours.

That's right. You're ignoring him. What's he going to do, jog up to you and yell some more? With four Managers in the way? The BrainWyrm is a lot bigger than you expected, so you need to take some time to figure out how to blow it up. You gesture airily at the Managers, who peel away; you don't follow.

«Status report.»

You're walking toward a really big sphere. Apparently the BrainWyrm. Is that right? Or is it BrainWorm?

«No. The first one.»

Ha! Of course you're correct. It makes you dizzy to look at it, from how big it is. It hums all through your body. You like walking toward it.

«It exerts a powerful gravity.»

It makes you dizzy to walk toward it, though, from the way the ground moves under you, or— something. You take a step and you're twice as close as you should be. Three times as close. Already there, banging your stomach against the railing— "Oof!"

The sphere looms up before you. It still isn't close, exactly. You can't touch it. If you reached out, maybe you could, or maybe your arm would stretch or come off your body. You think it's good there's a railing. The surface of the sphere isn't uniform— it's covered in lights of different sizes, slits of different sizes, panels. Some of the lights are shut off or are blinking unevenly. None of the slits are person-sized. Maybe if you ducked under the railing they'd suck you in to fit? The railing is digging into your stomach. Your hair, dragged in the BrainWyrm's direction, is all in your face.

No mere bomb could destroy this thing. You're not convinced Ellery could, even if he got inside. But you're no Ellery, and no bomb you have is a mere bomb. You're not concerned.

"CHARLOTTE!"

Nope. Ellery. You're not feeding him attention.

"??????"

Oh. That's a Manager, and that's either a curse word or a name. What's "Herald" in Snakeish? Damnit! With difficulty, you turn.

(1/2)

File: strange dagger.jpg (1.08 MB, 2063x2063)

1.08 MB JPG

Ellery is closer than he used to be. You can't touch him. If you reached out, maybe you could— you can't actually tell how space is here, except it seems to be on the fritz. He's off the stairs, at least, and is surrounded-ish with Managers, except that they're all conspicuously out of arm's reach. Lazy jerks. Do you have to do all the work?

You step forward, except every step is half its length. You stop and fold your arms. "Go away! I have it taken care of!"

"YOU FUCKING WISH, YOU FUCKING BITCH!" Ellery extends his arm long, too long, so his fist is in your face. He's clutching something. It's clearish. It's pointy. It glows faintly. It—

"Give that back!" you cry, and lunge, but it's too late— he's retracted his arm, or else it was never really there, and only looked it. The faraway tine of the Crown is safely in Ellery's bony grip. How did he get it from you? Did he steal it? You stole it from Wayne, sure, but it's yours! He's getting it filthy! And, more to the point, can you become Queen with 15/16ths of a Crown?

That's not rhetorical, Richard.

«No.»
«You can't.»

You can't. Meaning Ellery now lies directly between you and your destiny. And four hapless Managers lie between you and Ellery— what are they doing?

«They can't be near it.»

What?

«They can't be near it. It is antithetical. It'll—»

It'll 'poof' them. You remember now. Richard waving his hand over a crystal and the hand disappearing smoothly. He isn't real, and the Managers aren't real, and a crystal is real— emits realness.

«And that crystal more than any other.»

Yeah. But what about Casey? He's just behind Ellery— hostage, somehow. You can't tell more with the Managers in the way. What's the matter with him? Shouldn't he be yelling? Pleading? Talking in any way? Casey Kemper isn't supposed to stop talking.

God. And you were so close!

>[A1] You hate Ellery, but you don't want to kill him.
>[A2] You don't care anymore. You're fine if he dies.
>[A3] Write-in.

>[B1] He wants attention. Fine! Give him attention! Let him do whatever stupid little monologue he has cooked up. Maybe he'll let his guard down enough to let you snatch your crystal back.
>[B2] He wants a fight. Fine! You'll fight! Draw The Sword. [Roll.]
>[B3] He thinks you're special. Fine! You are! And you'll show him first-hand exactly what that means. (Advanced Advanced Gaslighting. What, exactly, would you like to accomplish? Write-in.) [Roll.]
>[B4] He thinks Management likes you. Fine! They do. You're the Herald of the Bright Epoch, according to them, and the Herald isn't going to let her loyal worshippers stand around *uselessly.* Help them out. [Roll.]
>[B5] He thinks something's wrong with you. Fine! You'll show him what's wrong with you. [-1 SV.]
>[B6] Write-in.

>>6140042
Goddammit, Ellery
>[A1] You hate Ellery, but you don't want to kill him.
Heroine
>[B4] He thinks Management likes you. Fine! They do. You're the Herald of the Bright Epoch, according to them, and the Herald isn't going to let her loyal worshippers stand around *uselessly.* Help them out. [Roll.]

>>6140042
>>6140063
Backing this
Just give him a big old shove back into Manager range

File: tegaki.png (12 KB, 400x400)

12 KB PNG

>>6140191
>Just give him a big old shove back into Manager range
Huh? Ellery is out of shove distance, there's Managers between him and you, and pushing him into Manager range would result in the Managers being temporarily(?) vanished. Please see picrel for the current situation, though distance is ~not to scale due to weird BrainWyrm proximity effects. If you wanted, you could try to abuse those effects to push him anyway, though I'm not entirely sure why and that would take a roll.

>[A1] You hate Ellery, but you don't want to kill him.
>[B4] He thinks Management likes you. Fine! They do. You're the Herald of the Bright Epoch, according to them, and the Herald isn't going to let her loyal worshippers stand around *uselessly.* Help them out. [Roll.]

>>6140042
>>[A1] You hate Ellery, but you don't want to kill him.
>>[B4] He thinks Management likes you. Fine! They do. You're the Herald of the Bright Epoch, according to them, and the Herald isn't going to let her loyal worshippers stand around *uselessly.* Help them out. [Roll.]

>>6140251
Oooh
Ok, different layout than I was expecting
Same vote but different method, take back your crown shard or something

>>6140063
>>6140191
>>6140272
>>6140430
>[A1]
>[B4]
Straightforward enough. I need dice.

>Please roll me 3 1d100s + 20 (+30 HERALD, -10 Self-Restraint) vs. DC 60 (+10 Tine) to aid the Managers!

Spend 1 ID for +10 to all rolls? You are at 7/14 ID.
>[1] Y
>[2] N

>>6140460
>Same vote but different method, take back your crown shard or something
You're working on it! All of the [B]s are for how exactly to get it back.

Rolled 71 + 20 (1d100 + 20)

>>6140510
WHAT ARE DICE BUT A JOKE?
>N
We probably won't need it.

Rolled 22 + 20 (1d100 + 20)

>>6140510
You're lucky I waited for the timer to post somewhere else.

>No spend.

Rolled 4 + 20 (1d100 + 20)

>>6140510
>Y
Spending is always worth it when dunking on Ellery

Rolled 75, 92, 66, 1, 85, 39 = 358 (6d100)

>>6140512
>>6140518
>>6140537
>91, 42, 24 vs. DC 70 -- Mitigated Success
>No spendy

Well... it's not a failure! Rolling dice for Ellery and the Managers, then writing.

Ellery: DC 50
Managers: DC 65

>>6140628
>Ellery: 75, 92, 66 vs. DC 50 -- Enhanced Success
>Managers: 1, 85, 39 vs. DC 65 -- CRITICAL FAILURE

Huh. Well. Writing.

>>6140630
I'm starting to thin Ellery might actually be the protagonist and we're just the viewpoint character

Spent a lot of time working out what I wanted to write and how I wanted to write it and no time writing. Early morning. You know the drill. Please know that I'm suffering. (At least I have a update fully mapped out for tomorrow...)

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>>6139329

>NIGHTMARES IV

You are in the lab (or the break room) (or out for a walk) when you see the latest print-out (or hear it on the radio) (or hear it from a passerby) that the world is ending. Not that it did, or it will, even though both are true. It is. It wound too far and now it's snapping. Nothing can be done. You run up the stairs (or out the door) (or up a hill) to see it. It looks like a black rift, widening, swallowing, or else like white cracks, snaking, shattering, and nothing can be done. Nothing can be done. You can know all about it for however long you like and you will never manage to stop it. All you can do is watch, in pain, in fear, until the rift catches you or the cracks surround you and you fall into the void and are lost.

That's the gist, but variety is the spice of life, so you never stop tinkering with it. When you first took a hike, there was a neat guilt element: that you could've stopped it, but you left the cure at the lab, silly you. Or they were right on the brink of cracking it, the saving-the-world business, but they needed your talents— and now you're gone, and whoops! Into the void. So it goes. The setting changes too, of course. Now you're getting a rolled-up missive from a courier. Or you're talking to the General Store kid, Roscoe, and he says off-handedly to look outside, because the world's ending. Or you're the first to see it, sometimes, the first crack, the first split, the first fray of the string, even (in your mind they're visible to the naked eye), and you try and try to contain it, stuff it closed, trap it under your cloak, climb in yourself, even, but it's no dice. Snake-eyes. Or snake-eye! That's a newer addition. You think it's Garvin's fault. Guy hears about the end of the world and starts getting chatty about snakes and gods and genocidal snake-gods, which isn't at all your ballpark, but next thing you know a chasm's opened and there's a big yellow eye inside. Result's the same, of course. Nothing can be done. But the visuals are a smidge more exciting.

In recent weeks Charlotte's been there. Sometimes passively— she's the messenger, you know. Uh oh, world's ending. Standard stuff. Sometimes she's doing her silly hero thing, voice and all— "Hark! I shall journey forth to slay this horror!", that kind of stuff— and rushing into the chasm, sword held high, whether you plead with her or not. It doesn't do anything, but you hope it made her feel better, at least. Then sometimes, occasionally, it's her fault. You mean she did it. Plunged that sword into the ground or raised her fist to the sky and ended the world, coolly, pitilessly, completely.

You just don't know what to make of the kid. You don't think it's her fault, whatever it is about her. Got dealt a bad hand. At least she goes out there and does something, even when nothing can be done. Not like you. You sit and smirk and wait and rot. You know that's worse. But what else can you possibly do?

>END IV

>>6140667
As it turns out, Drowned Quest MCs can get good rolls! ...When they're not the MC anymore.

Or in other words: Ellery isn't the protagonist. He's the discarded former protagonist of the first, failed quest. This is true in a literal OOC sense, but it's true metatextually, too. If you're somebody a little bit special, a little bit important, a little bit hubristic and impulsive and self-centered, and all these traits are identified and exploited, and all of a sudden you're locked away for years, not just no longer important, but completely devoid of meaning, purpose, or impact-- despite your desperate self-destructive attempts to invent meaning, invent purpose, to make *any* impact, all of which fail or backfire-- wouldn't you go insane too? And if you met somebody who was hubristic and impulsive and self-centered and *special* and *important*, who filled the empty (protagonistic) space *you* left, except ten times more (because even when he was the MC, he wasn't a very good one)-- wouldn't you hate their living guts?

He's not the protagonist, but I think he would do just about anything to feel like one again. Given these rolls, it seems like he's trying pretty damn hard.
\

>>6140676
Pat?
Eloise?

File: real ellery - @cryptbones.png (3.73 MB, 1610x1992)

3.73 MB PNG

>Helping hand
>91, 42, 24 vs. DC 70 -- Mitigated Success

>Ellery: 75, 92, 66 vs. DC 50 -- Enhanced Success
>Managers: 1, 85, 39 vs. DC 65 -- CRITICAL FAILURE


But it's fine. Positive thinking. Ellery might be the worst, the least likable, the most perennially obnoxious, obtrusive, selfish, self-absorbed and plain pathetic person you know, but he isn't evil. He doesn't deserve to have his spine ripped out and shoved down his throat, no matter how much you don't like him. So you won't do that. You'll just show him what-for, as usual, and maybe this time he'll go away and leave you alone.

You crane your neck to see if there's a way to get at him. You appreciate that the Managers have him cornered, even though they're at risk of poofing, but they also make it sort of difficult to tell what to do. Maybe you should order them out of the way? But Ellery wants that. Can you sneak around behind them? But you're clearly visible. Hmm.

No good answers yet. So it looks like you're not just standing there, though, you pace sideways. One of the Managers, catching your movement, turns his head. "Herald!" he pleads— or commands?

What? Oh, God, are you supposed to intervene? Now the other Managers are looking at you. "Sunbringer!" "Return to us, Great One!" "Flourish!" "Deliver us!"

Ellery is looking at you too. You mean, he's still faceless, but you can feel his level gaze. "Herald," he says delightedly, and steps— slides— warps forward. Casey, yanked along with him, comes too. The hastier Managers slide away in anticipation, and the less-hasty fade as the tine nears them. Then they return.

The entire gaggle is still out of reach, but they're close enough to make you tense. "Sunbringer," Ellery continues, mockingly. "Great One."

"It's not how it sounds," you say defensively. "I'm not actually—"

"You're not actually. The Management only THINKS you're a god, but they're totally wrong! Is that it? Hey, doc." He swings the tine around at the white-haired Manager. "Her over there. Is she your god?"

"The Herald is no god," the Manager says. ("Ha!" you say.) "We spoke of this. I trust you remember, Mr. Routh?"

Ellery's fingers clamp down. "I KNEW it was—"

"You do. Good. It is— I would say our sun. Our guiding light. It will usher in the Day. It will rouse God. Succinctly, Mr. Routh, it the star of the show. The lead in the script. The Herald will save us. You, rat, are nothing."

Now Ellery's shoulders stiffen. Damnit! Why are they provoking him? Don't they know he goes crazy when he gets mad? Think, think, think. You can't actually save the Managers with Herald powers, so you need to—

«Why not?»

What? Richard, because you're not still possessed. Obviously. And you can't call the real Herald back so soon, because she's important, and it'd be rude.

«You said it yourself earlier. Reality is malleable this deep. Look outward.»

You don't have time!

«You will. Outward.»

(1/3)

File: sun 1.jpg (69 KB, 564x705)

69 KB JPG

Fine. Outward. Outside of you is an angering Ellery and four still-useless Managers.

«Not them, Charlie. Broader.»

Okay, okay. The BrainWyrm is behind you, tugging you close. You're afraid that looking at it, eyes shut, would blind you. It is an enormous blazing breathing ball of Law, almost solid white, wreathed in looser strings— the Managers' single tethers lead right to it, and your and Ellery's own strings are straining in its direction. Your strings don't look that string-y anymore, though. They look more like a miniature sun. Or, you guess, a miniature BrainWyrm.

The Mark II's hum is omnipresent. You feel it in your teeth, your fingers, your scalp. The walkway vibrates from it. It is hungry, you think. The Managers are feeding it. For what? To what end? For you, the Herald. It was meant to find you, summon you, birth you— something. The important thing is that it's yours. Or hers. But she didn't seem to mind you claiming the title.

The hum is louder the more you focus on it. You feel it in your skin, your muscles, your bones. Your blood. It isn't exactly true that reality is malleable down here, you think. Or if it is, it's already being worked. Like that snake in the ice holding everything solid. Madrigal was the snake. The Herald...

The Herald unhinged your mouth and took out the sun. The first is easy. You've felt it done. You let the hum enter your jaw and rattle it loose, and you hook your fingers and pull back your lips, and it is finished. The second is harder. The sun is deeper. But you flex your throat and gag and hork finally it into your mouth, where it rolls and stops behind your teeth. You pluck it out.

You'd rather not replace your eye with it— what would that accomplish? You pinch it between your fingers and hold it up instead. You feel the hum in your wrist, your hand, your nails, and you gently toss the sun into the air.

There it hangs, shining, resonating, growing. Not to anything crazy. From the size of a gumball to about the size of your head. But that alone is enough. You feel it; everyone feels it. The Dawn. The Day. The Bright Epoch. The WYRM will bleed and raze and reap and the Herald will scrub and build and sow. It will open the gate. It will lead the way. It will make them real again, it will make them touch and taste and feel again, and it will be perfect, and it will be good. And it is. The Day has come. Witness the Managers' tethers twitch and bunch and tangle in the light of the sun: they are becoming Real.

(2/3)

File: real ellery (sun mode) - (...).png (1.3 MB, 1063x1315)

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You see it. Ellery, faceless, watchful, sees it too. And that must be why he acts, knifing the tine of the Crown into the white-haired Manager's throat; letting go of it and spinning and shooting another in the head with a crossbow; swinging Casey into the third and fourth, who stumble, unused to their weight. He plucks the tine out and spins again and has drawn Casey's lightning gun from Casey's waistband; he aims at the third and fourth and fires close-range, so that they shake and smoke and fall.

The Managers lie on the ground, dead or catatonic, bleeding real blood: real snake blood, all brazen. Ellery tosses the lightning gun aside (it thuds and vanishes) and yanks Casey back toward him. Casey isn't tied up. His eyes are glazed, his forehead is beaded up with sweat, and his jaw is hinged open, like yours. Something long and narrow and scaly protrudes from it. Ellery's hand is firmly around that, and his other hand grasps the now-bright tine.

"Herald," he addresses you.

"Aahuhhh," you say back, then blink and remember. You push your jaw back until it clicks into place. "Why did you— what did you do that for?! How could you?! They were just trying to—"

"They're fucking MANAGEMENT. They ruined my LIFE. They ruined—" He peers at you. "Did they ruin yours? Or were you their special little project?"

"I'm not! I— I was lying to them! I'm not the real Herald." You fold your arms. "The real Herald's a big lizard."

"You're a bad liar. I want my sun back."

"What?" you say.

"I WANT my SUN back, you fucking bitch. Sunbringer. You FUCKING stole it from me." He points at it, still hovering above. "I'll give you this for it."

He means the tine. "What?" you say. "Really?"

"Yes. What use do I have for this fucking shit? I'm a rat. You're God. Give it back."

"I'm not God," you mumble. "But I'd expect that kind of blasphemy from a filthy pagan..."

Ellery doesn't say anything. His arm is outstretched.

>[1] Okay. Fine. He can have his stupid sun back. You never liked it anyway. [?]

>[2] You're altering the deal. You need the tine *and* the sun. At best, you're giving him half a sun back, and he should feel grateful for that much. (Write-in reasoning to aid the roll.) [Possible roll.]

>[3] You don't make deals with murderers. Sorry, Ellery.
>>[A] But he will give you the tine. That's factual. Tell him so. (Advanced Gaslighting.) [Tricky roll.]
>>[B] But you will take the tine from him by force. A proper duel. Like in the books. [Roll OR spend 1 SV.]
>>[C] Write-in.

>[4] Write-in.

>>6141184
>[2] You're altering the deal. You need the tine *and* the sun. At best, you're giving him half a sun back, and he should feel grateful for that much. (Write-in reasoning to aid the roll.) [Possible roll.]
We need the sun to explodify Headspace

>>6141184
>The Dawn. The Day. The Bright Epoch. The WYRM will bleed and raze and reap and the Herald will scrub and build and sow. It will open the gate. It will lead the way. It will make them real again, it will make them touch and taste and feel again, and it will be perfect, and it will be good. And it is. The Day has come. Witness the Managers' tethers twitch and bunch and tangle in the light of the sun: they are becoming Real.
Woah this feels like important lore

>2
We need the sun to keep Management reverent. Otherwise they’re gonna torture nexus us for blasphemy and impersonation.
(Maybe not totally true but Ellery doesn’t need to know that, plus it could be true)

>>6141196
>>6141299
>[2]

Alright! Sadly, your arguments are not enough to convince Ellery outright. Considering that he wants to be the one to explodify Headspace, and he just murdered four Managers. You'll need dice for this.

>Please roll me 3 1d100s + 10 (+10 Attempting Civility) vs. DC 70 (+20 MY SUN) to convince Ellery to go halfsies!

Spend 1 ID for +10 to all rolls? You are at 7/14 ID.
>[1] Y
>[2] N

Rolled 24 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>6141572
>Y
DICE.

Rolled 97 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>6141572
>Y

Rolled 52 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>6141572
Y

Rolled 41 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>6141572
>N

>>6141575
>>6141576
>>6141587
>44, 117, 72 vs. DC 70 -- Success
>Spendy

Nice! Pulled it out of the bag. Writing.

Rolled 2, 1 = 3 (2d2)


1 = Outta Here
2 = Hesitating

1 = Cavalry
2 = No Cavalry

File: sun 6.jpg (79 KB, 564x564)

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>Halfsies
>44, 117, 72 vs. DC 70 — Success
>Spendy

"I'm not— it's mine!" You fold your arms. "I need it! For important... Herald-y... it's what's tricking them into thinking I'm the Herald, Ellery. Do you think you're going to trick them? Because you're not."

"Trick who?"

You appraise the bodies on the ground. "They might come back! You don't know! And I also— I mean— I might need it for blowing up Headspace?"

"Gee. You need it for blowing up Headspace. If only some guy was offering to do it for you, huh? Why don't you fuck off right now, Lottie? You can take all the credit, if that's why you're doing this. I'm going to be too dead to care, so—"

"No!" If he blows it up, it doesn't count. "Why don't you eff off and let me take care of it?! I won't die, and my plan is way better, and Headspace will still—"

"Sun," Ellery says. "Or I'm taking this and running."

God! But you need the tine, too. He's such a rat bastard. If you give up the tine, you lose... but if you negotiate for it, isn't that sort of a win? You'd be all sensible-looking. Richard would be proud of you.

«What was that?»

Nothing. You clear your throat. "Er, well, for reasons explained, I cannot— I cannot return the entire sun. But maybe I can give you half?"

"Half?" Ellery says, like you're crazy.

"I mean, it's the— look! It got bigger! So you'd be getting more total sun back. Also, if you run away, I'll catch you and beat you up, and then I'll keep the tine and the sun. You know that."

Ellery's fingers curl. He knows that.

"So half is generous, frankly. Watch. I'll split it up right now." You reach for the sun. It dangles, tauntingly, just out of your grasp. "Um, hang on."

"Do you need help with that?"

"No! I—"

Ellery steps-slides-warps forward and grabs the sun easily. You glare at him. He holds it in his hand for a moment, cocks his chin, and lobs it at you. "Here."

Is he mocking you? You catch it and stick out your tongue at him, so he doesn't get any bright ideas. Then you grasp it carefully. Underneath its light, the sun is smooth, almost slick. You can find no purchase.

>[-1 ID: 6/14]

No immediate purchase. But you will it to split, and a hum moves through you, and your hands grow hot and brittle. Claws? No, don't look. You twist, and the sun cleaves into two perfect smaller spheres. "Here," you mimic Ellery, and toss it. You remember too late the BrainWyrm's gravity— but the sun sails forward, exempt.

Ellery catches it. For you, you squeeze your half back to its original size, shut your eyes, and swallow it down. Something within you is glad for its return; something within you is angry. The light is too dim. The conditions are not good for growth.

>[DOWNGRADED: SUNSTRUCK. Gain 1 SV any time you fall to 0 SV. Lose 3 ID any time you gain SV in this manner.]

(1/3?)

You swallow that down too: Ellery has enough to say without seeing you all murdery. He's pushing his half of the sun into his face-hole. Whatever suits him, you suppose. You wave your arm to catch his attention. "Well, there you go. Tine, please."

No response. He's glowing. Good for him, or whatever. Can you take the tine out of his hand? Or, no— he's sealing the hole back up. Ellery has a face again. He looks at you with it. He looks down at the tine. He jerks his hand up and over his shoulder—

"HEY!" you yelp, and start to dash— then he grins humorlessly and shows you the tine he didn't toss. "Sure. Here you go."

You reach for it, and he jerks his arm backwards. Why were you thinking about sparing him? If you told him he's doomed to the snake pit, would he consider it a serious threat? You bare your teeth and almost hiss, and he laughs still-humorlessly and hands it to you. It's heavier than you expect. You guess it's full of Manager.

You shove it deep in your pocket, before you get infused with Managerness, and scowl up at him. "Thanks."

"Welcome," he says, and looks contemplatively past you. "..."

"Ellery?" You had half-expected him to bolt the instant he got the sun back. You'd still catch up to him and beat him up, of course, but it would've been annoying. "Are you done with the blowing up plan now? What about Casey?" Casey's still fastened.

"He's fucked. They put this thing in him." Ellery jerks the scaled tether. "He wasn't always like that."

"Like—"

"You know what. That. I mean, he was kind of like that, but he was a guy, Charlotte. I didn't have shit-for-brains. I wouldn't have signed up for that."

"Oh." You look sideways at Casey's slack jaw. Then you look back. "I guess that makes sense."

"They weren't in the picture until later, is what I thought, but I don't think that's true. I think it was planned from the start. I was fucked over systematically. That's what they do, Charlotte. Systematic. It isn't just me."

You gaze above you, toward the hundred-hundred little white cubes. "I mean... obviously."

"Not even them. That's scrap. I mean projects, long-term. Me and you and dozens of others, I guarantee it. Systematically fucked. What are you looking at?"

You're still looking up. There's the cubes, yes, but there's movement between them. Shut your eyes and see a tiny bundle of string, a tiny embroidery hoop. Open your eyes and see, maybe, a slowly descending diving suit. "Nothing."

"You don't have to worry about them. They'll all be dead for good soon. Best thing that can happen to them."

Anthea. You don't know why she's here, but you can guess. She doesn't want Ellery to blow himself up any more than you do, if for complete opposite reasons. Has she been trying to track him this whole time? Ellery wouldn't blow himself up if she were there watching, right? But how long will he stay normal? He's already starting to fidget. Soon he'll be on the run, like he always is.

(Choices next.)

>What's the plan? (I'll call the winning option early and have another round of voting for specifics unless a suitable write-in is submitted.)

>[1] You need to distract Ellery until Anthea can make it down and talk real, lasting sense into him. (Optional: how?)
>[2] You need to get Anthea down here much, much faster. (Optional: how?)
>[3] You need to take matters into your own hands. Maybe you can finally get through to Ellery about how pointless his endeavor is, so he'll quit on his own. (Optional: how?)
>[4] Write-in.

>>6141751
>[1] You need to distract Ellery until Anthea can make it down and talk real, lasting sense into him. (Optional: how?)
Start convincing him our plan is better than his, because it lets people evacuate

>>6141751
>3
He was systematically experimented on by Management and is now suicidal, so he thinks it’s best for everyone else here to die too, because they must feel the same way he does. We were also targeted though, and we’re not suicidal, so maybe if we feel that way there are people here who also want to live despite what Management has done to them. He should let us evacuate and blow the place up our way so they can make their own decisions, rather than choosing death for all of them on his own.

>>6141784
>>6141835
Seems like you guys are thinking the same thing. You'll be lecturing Ellery about his body count (no, not that one, but that one is also pretty high...), but let's add a few additional factors. You are at 6/14 ID.

>[A1] Attempt sincerely to convince Ellery.
>[A2] Argue with no expectation of convincing him-- you're just stalling him out until Anthea comes. [Two rolls: one for convincing him, one for stalling him. You only need to succeed on one, but he'll be angrier if you fail.]

The [B]s are optional.

>[B1] This isn't something you can fail at. He must believe you. (Advanced Gaslighting.) [Roll DC will increase. Effects will be stronger if you succeed.]
>[B2] There is no future where he goes further. Show him that. (Spend 3 ID to autosucceed.)
>[B3] You have another argument you want to add. (What? Write-in. If convincing, it'll help your rolls.)
>[B4] Write-in.

>>6141970
Sorry, to be clear, [A1] is also a [Roll] (singular) unless you guys impress me with [B3].

>>6141970
>A2
>B1
I just think it would be funny.

>>6141970
>[A1] Attempt sincerely to convince Ellery.
>[B3]
Does he know there's people (not us) who like him and will be very sad if he explodes? He might've convinced himself he has no worth, but we know of at least two.
And by the way, is he intending to explode the innocent us along with Headspace?
As the very last resort, tell him Anthea is here and he'll explode her as well.

>>6142120
>at least two
To clarify, Anthea and Madrigal? (Earl might also count, though it appears that he likes most everybody, and you could probably make an argument for the people at camp too.)

>And by the way, is he intending to explode the innocent us along with Headspace?
If this means Us, the goo hivemind, it's currently in a different manse and probably wouldn't be affected. Ellery knows little-to-nothing about it, though, so you could fudge this pretty easily. If this means a colloquial "us" (Charlotte and/or Gil and/or Anthea), no commentary.

>[A1] Attempt sincerely to convince Ellery.

>>6142124
Yeah, I meant "us" as in "Charlotte"
>To clarify, Anthea and Madrigal?
Yep
I thought about Earl too, but as you've said he's generally friendly

>>6141970
>A1
>B2
B2 is absolutely spending ID we can't afford right now, but holy hell does it sound badass.
Also maybe we can afford it, Ellery killed all the Managers and subdued Casey, so he's the only threat left and this would handle him.

>>6141970
>>[A1] Attempt sincerely to convince Ellery.
>[B2] There is no future where he goes further. Show him that. (Spend 3 ID to autosucceed.)

>>6141970
>[A1] Attempt sincerely to convince Ellery.
>[B2] There is no future where he goes further. Show him that. (Spend 3 ID to autosucceed.)

>Everyone except 6141985
>[A1]

>>6141985
>[A2]

>>6142244
>>6142275
>>6142287
>[B2]

>>6142120
>[B3]

>>6141985
>[B1]

>>6142146
>No [B]

Called for [A1] + [B2] + all the write-ins and writing.

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>Claim victory

No, you can't wait for Anthea— she will be slow, and she could very well be useless. You have only the barest of impressions of her, but she strikes you as weak-willed. What if Ellery ignores her protestations? Plus, your entire plan, dependent on a veritable stranger? Never! You will speak to him yourself, and you'll succeed this time for sure.

"Best thing to happen to who?" you say. "The people in the cubes? Or everybody up there?"

"First one. But the second one's true too. They're all fucked."

He pauses. You take a gamble. "Systematically?"

"Systematically. Do you think they can survive a day outside here? Maybe if they're fresh in. Maybe. The rest of them— I mean— it's not like I hold any ill will, okay? So don't start that with me. But there's nothing to do for them."

"So you'll kill thousands of innocent—"

Ellery's lips thin. "I just fucking told you not to start that. They're dead already. And they operate a machine to murder thousands more people, and it'll keep chugging right along, Charlotte, unless—"

"What are you talking about? You killed all the Management!"

"We killed those. None of the rest left bodies. If you don't think they'll be back in an hour, give me a break. And it's not just Management, you realize? There's not enough of them to all be Management. They have suck-ups. Case in point." He kicks Casey's ankle. "Those ones deserve to die. The rest— like I said. Already dead."

"Aren't we already dead?" you protest. "However it was? Philosophically?"

"Don't know about you. I am. Good thing I'm taking care of that, yeah?"

God! He has so many stupid positions, you don't know which one to argue against. "But you are alive? I know you don't want to be, but you're here, and you're talking, so—"

"I know you hate that. Shouldn't you want me dead?"

If Richard or somebody said that, it'd be a wicked trap. Ellery might actually mean it. "No? I'm a heroine! I only want evil people dead! Which is why I don't want to explode thousands of—"

"I do. What's more, I'm personally responsible for their suffering. Thousands of people? All my fault. Aren't I evil?"

Okay. This one might be a trap. You narrow your eyes. "No? Why are you harping on this? The point is—"

"The point is that you have a childish moral system. Is it even a system? Or do you toss fucking darts everywhere and hope for the best?"

"No! I hate darts. And it's not childish, it's— it's sensible, for your information. It's extremely sensible. Did you mean to make all those people suffer?"

"That's—"

"Answer the question! Did you?"

"No," Ellery says, "but that's hardly—"

(1/3)

"So you're not evil! Obviously. You have to mean it to be evil. And not-evil people don't explode thousands of other people, so clearly you won't. Also, you can't kill yourself, because you're not evil, so you don't deserve to die. Only evil people get to kill themselves." You nod sagely. "Sacrifices are different, of course, but you don't get to say you're sacrificing yourself, because I can blow up Headspace just fine without you. Better, actually, since I— reminder— won't kill thousands? I'll evacuate them?"

"How."

"I will! I don't think you should doubt me, Ellery." You feel more confident about it if you don't think about how. "I think you should let me go take care of it, and you can go home and neck with Madrigal. Or Anthea. Or both? I think they'll really miss you if you explode yourself."

"They have better options," Ellery says coolly, and looks past you. "I think I better go, Charlotte. Nice talk."

"What?" But you had so many arguments! "Don't ignore me! Your plan is really— hey!" He's dodged you and is moving past, his image stretching and snapping. "Hey! Stop! You don't get to pretend you won that. Your plan sucks, and it's stupid, and... and look, I'm going to have to stop you if you don't stop by yourself, okay? Sorry, but I am."

"Sure." He's pressed up against the railing, peering down into the void. His hair and shirt strain forward. "Try it."

Huh. Well, he's offering. You think for a moment, then slide up behind him, claw up your hand, and punch it right between his shoulderblades. Your sharp nails puncture the paper easily, and then you have a hand right inside his hollow chest. You grasp something intangible. Sunlight leaks out around your wrist.

Ellery freezes dead. "What the fuck?! You fucking bitch!"

"You said to try stopping you!" you say. "So I'm stopping you!"

"I—" What was he expecting? Was he going to dive off the railing before you got there? Was there a hold-up? He should've dived faster. "Fucking let me go."

Geez, he's agitated. You can feel it up your arm. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"No?! You're not?! You're just going to take my limbs?!" He tries twisting around, but you really have him. You have him. "You fucking bitch. You sadist. Fucking little Managerspawn. A chip off the old block, huh? A chip off the fucking old block. Fuck you!"

Double-geez. You were only trying to keep him here, maybe until Anthea gets here, maybe until you decide what to do next. You weren't planning to do anything to him. Maybe you should, now that he's being rude again, except you know he's scared out of his mind: it's making your hand tremble. You guess that's fair. If you were Management, you could do anything you wanted to him. But you're not, so you think he's jumping awfully quick to conclusions. "Limbs?"

"Like you did?"

(2/3)

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"Like I what? Calm down. I just want you to..." What do you want? He's going to be mad even if you let him go. "I want you to understand, okay? You can't blow up Headspace, for all the reasons I said, and because you just can't. It's like you said before. I'm the heroine, and you're... you're some guy. It's not bad to be some guy. I think it'd be easier for you if you were, really."

"Fuck you," Ellery says uncreatively.

"I think I can help you understand that." You look past him, at the vast blinking bulk of the BrainWyrm, and back. "Don't ask me questions about it, okay? I can't answer questions. That's not how heroing works. You do things, and other people get to explain them. But I think I can— I mean, I believe I can. And that's what matters!"

He's silent. Still scared, though. You sigh. "Well, anyways."

And you do something complicated with your hands. Ellery goes from stiff to doubled over. Does he still have his limbs? Yes. That's good. You're not trying to mess with his limbs. What are you doing, then? Well, you can't answer questions, not even your own. Maybe it has to do with the humming. (It drowns Richard out, if he's trying to talk.) Maybe it has to do with the roses. Maybe it has to do with the sun, the suns, newly split, newly joined, bright as Day, pouring light from Ellery's back, mouth, eyes, heart.

>[-3 ID: 3/14]

Yours too, Herald.

—

>[1] [THEN]
>[2] [NOW]
>[3] [LATER]

>[1] [THEN]

>>6142455
>1
BASED

Can't believe he was so mad after we did what he told us to do

>>6142455
>[2] [NOW]

>>6142455
>[3] [LATER]

>>6142597
>>6142603
>[1]

>>6142681
>[2]

>>6142796
>[3]

Interesting... writing.

>>6142603
>Can't believe he was so mad after we did what he told us to do
Ellery is not known for thinking through the consequences of his actions. Also, I don't think he expected you to go for the strings!

Hmm. Sorry, folks. This one's a weird case of knowing what I want to write, but not finding the words... or rather, I had the words, then I lost them. Let's see if a good night's sleep will cure that. In the meantime, more NIGHTMARES.

>>6140742
Late, but I think you can figure out which from context!

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>NIGHTMARES V

Sometimes you think you die in your sleep. Not every time. Only when you're beetles, and not every time then, either. Maybe never, if you believe Richard. You did ask about it. You explained that sometimes, if you weren't in a body, and you slept, that you didn't dream. Or, no. That was wrong. That you didn't dream like a... like a person. You could say this conclusively, since you'd started to remember your normal dreams scarily well, ever since you started sleeping again. All but these ones. Because you were dead.

Richard laughed at you sort of cruelly when you asked, which immediately made you consider going to sleep and dying right there, but it was too late, because he did answer your question. He said that— as he'd explained earlier— You, your self-concept, your self-experience, had, as a result of the process you'd taken to calling beetlefication, been fragmented into approximately 400 semi-autonomous little bits. The only reason You, as a person, as a Beetles, still exists, is because you had managed to hang on through that, keeping yourself together in the most literal possible sense, retaining the invisible but very literal bonds between said bits. It was through these bonds that there was a You, not through the beetles.

In a body, he said, the bonds are in one big bundle, so there's never any danger of disrupting the Youness. In many bodies, it's more complex. You naturally cluster up, don't you, Beetles? If dragged apart, you snap back together? If held at a distance, you feel your mind sliding, your edges dissolving? These are the bonds. He told you they were real. What's more, they are self-reinforcing. The more You there, is the stronger they get. The stronger they get, the more You there is. Understood?

You knew all that, you said lamely, you just think that maybe when you're sleeping they—

Richard was brusque. If the bonds were to snap, there would be no Beetles; there would only be beetles. Forever. You have died (you say) and come back; therefore you didn't die. Common sense. But then, it isn't so common, is it? It may be that the bonds, without active waking reinforcement, weaken during sleep. It may be that your lesser minds creep in. It doesn't mean you're in danger. Really, Beetles. Use all those heads for once.

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And that was that. And you're not saying that what he said wasn't true. You don't like him and you don't trust him, but he knows his shit about this kind of stuff. You're just not sure he exactly grasps, from the inside, what it's like. When you sleep in a body, there's a sense of continuity you (you now realize) take for granted: you shut your eyes, you stay there for a while, you wake up. You, you, you, all the way through. See? Instead, when it happens, it's like this: you shut your eyes, a trapdoor opens, and you fall straight out of the world. If you exist, you exist somewhere black and thin, without time, without sensation. You die. Then another trapdoor opens and you're launched back in, and you have only the weirdest, vaguest notion of where your mind was. And where it was was: the beetles. You are fucking overtaken by whatever tiny cord of instinct runs through you, and for however many hours there is no You, and you are beetles, asleep, dreaming beetle dreams.

To clarify, these aren't even necessarily bad. Sometimes you wake up and you have a weird, vague notion of satisfaction, of satiation, of peace, and you have a leafy taste in your mouth, and you can put two and two together and guess the beetle dream was good. And if they were all good, maybe you'd throw up your hands and accept it. But sometimes you wake up tense, like you need to hide, or frantic, like you need to flee, or— way, way worse— confused. This is the part that fucks you up. You awaken confused about who you are, where you are, your body— your size, your fleshiness, your flightlessness. You awaken mute. It's been wearing off within a minute at most, most of the time, so it's not like you're in danger. You are trying to believe that. But there was one time where you woke up empty— you guess that's really what you're worried about. That one day. And it was early on, too, when you weren't out of the manse, when Lottie wasn't visiting that often. So that's probably why.

But you woke up from a death-sleep and when you woke up you didn't have thoughts. Not that you weren't You: you were one single guy, you're sure of it, not beetles. You filtered back into that body Lottie built. But in that body, in your mind, it was all quiet. No commentary at all. You can't remember if you didn't know you weren't thinking, or if you didn't care. You probably wouldn't've cared if you'd known. You just went around doing your usual stuff, happy as a clam, until Richard showed up and realized you were fucked. You think he tried talking to you, maybe, and you didn't get it. You mean that you didn't understand his speech. It was all noise. And he realized, and he futzed with you, and whatever he did fixed it. And you were alive again.

There. That's what has you fucked up. That you're one funny night away from being a thing— from being reduced to a thing and not knowing, maybe forever not knowing. How long would it have gone if Richard wasn't there? Would you have snapped out of it? Or was something in you stuck, a switch jammed, and it could've been jammed like that forever? Maybe You wouldn't be dead— but you would be. Whoever you are.

It makes you wonder if you could do it on purpose, if you wanted to. Going to sleep and staying asleep forever. Or stretching yourself so far it all just snapped. You don't want to want that, but sometimes it crosses your mind.

That's not even really what has you fucked up, the jammed-switch thing. What has you fucked up is reflecting back on it, those few hours, and having your immediate gut reaction be regret. Because waking up with zero thoughts felt great. No jitters. No doubts. No endless shitty circle-thinking. Like having a smoke, except your body stays perfectly fine, not achy and paralyzed. Just you in all directions, in perfect harmony, stretching on forever. Richard unstuck you, yes, and gave you back your words, yes, plus every single burden back with them. And you, Beetles: you are all goddamn burdens.

It's not good. It's really not good. It's a fucking nightmare, actually, and you try not to think about it at all. Or you think about Lottie. Would Lottie be pissed if you forsook humanity for Beetle Hell, or else Beetle Heaven? She would be so unbelievably pissed. Remember that. Hold onto that and remember.

>END V

>>6142934
Back at it and writing.

>Introspect

It is like this. If Ellery will not bind himself to single combat, a cleansing with blood, a fight to a draw, then you will draw him tight and bind him to you, and he will see sun, and he will taste roses, and he will know finally this: that he isn't like you. Not how it matters.

And that is good, because you are alike in all the ways that don't. If this were not true, you have made it true. If you have bound him to you, you have bound you to him, not irrevocably— it was not done with hatred or hunger— but thoroughly. No such thing as a one-way connection, Charlie. It's your mind, too, at the moment. Put it like this, for clarity: two bodies, one sun. Nuclear fusion.

Why did you do such a thing? No questions. Not because you don't want to answer them, but because you have nothing to say. More and more you act on impulse. More and more it seems like the right thing to do. Intuition! It's a heroic trait. Except that Ellery's not a hero, and he's no different: he's worse, if anything, even twitchier, even spacier, even less tethered to earth. If intuition ruled, Ellery would be King; he would be God, but he isn't, and you are.

You know that, but you don't understand it. Not in any honest sense. That's the problem with being a heroine— you have no explanation. That's not usual, you think, in the books. There's usually a prophecy or a sorcerous bloodline. And maybe there is a prophecy, one you haven't heard of, and maybe your bloodline is sorcerous, but admittedly you have doubts regarding timing, and Richard has raised objections. Ellery has no prophecies either, and his bloodline is raw mud, but that only puts you tit for tat. So that isn't it either.

You know that he isn't like you. That you are removed at some length from him or from everybody. That you are (Richard would further object to this phrasing) destined. You know, but you don't understand why. Ellery understands— has said as much, has shot you— but he doesn't know it. If he knew in his marrow, he wouldn't be here, bothering. You have done this so you can share knowings. That's your answer. Now stop distracting yourself— that's what he does.

(1/2)

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Which is not to say that you are Ellery. You're clearly not. If you twisted a smidge harder, maybe you could be, but God! Could you imagine? Neither of you would be pleased, as an understatement, and it isn't necessary. This situation is simpler. It is like this: he and you are in a large bright warm room, and there's a line in chalk on the floor, and your side of the line is yours, and his side his. But it's only chalk. You can see and hear everything he has over there, and you can go over there, if you like, if he doesn't muscle up and try to stop you. A binding, not a merger.

Like That Guy, you hear, from his side of the room, and you see blue eyes, a blue pen, a clean coat, a shave, a smile, guilt, guilt, anger, grief, loss, guilt, for killing him, letting him be killed, for being him and making no good use of it at all. For fucking spitting on his good name.

Um, you were going to say like Richard. (Normal Richard. Not when he's squished into you.) Or maybe Teddy, if you understand what's going on there correctly. Maybe more like Teddy, since with you and Richard, Richard's cozied up behind a one-way mirror. You're distracting yourself again. The truth is that you're not sure you want to know what makes you different. All the answers you ever get are unpleasant. You just feel like you need to know. You intuit that you need to know. See? Focus.

>[1] Well? What makes you different from Ellery? (Write-in.) All answers accepted: don't feel pressured to be "right". I may use multiple responses if I get them. I probably won't include joke answers in the narrative, though, fair warning.

Also, sorry for the out-of-left-field take on this: this is a very, very tricky update to write. I'm working my way toward the central point the long way around, pls trust. [THEN] will come in a bit.

>>6143005
:(

>>6143598
>1
We think positive, he thinks negative
We’ve never done anything wrong, he makes tons of mistakes
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh
We have a heroic bent and a proper upbringing?

>>6143666
We also have a sword
And we bravely adventure, while he cowardly hides

>>6143666 (hello, Satan)
>>6143689

True! All excellent differences. Surely one of these will be the key...

Writing.

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>Retrospection

You crouch down inside your heads and focus.

Between you and Ellery, some things are the same. Both of you have suns. Both of you can't die. Both of you had somebody in your head, giving you advice, even if yours is your snake-father and his was some smarmy carbon copy. These things might be interesting, might even matter, but by their nature they can't delineate. The differences, then.

You think that there's two kinds of differences. There are differences that are true, but not meaningful. It is true, for instance, that Ellery is a man; that he is far too tall; that he's rather emaciated and unhealthy-looking; that he was raised— you are grasping this now— orphaned and indigent, which would explain a lot; that he is not and has never been in possession of a sword, nor a crown, nor a loyal retainer. As much as you'd like to believe otherwise, none of these tip the balance. Certainly he'd be more heroic if he were handsome, or muscular, or well-bred, or sword-carrying. But the orphan thing is points in his favor, actually, and the sword... well, you didn't have one until you got it from Jesse. Were you not special and heroic before Jesse? Was Jesse special and heroic in your stead? No. Jesse died.

You are hearing from across the chalk that plenty of women have found Ellery handsome, actually, despite or perhaps because of his malnourishment. You are receiving blurry evidence. You are utilizing your superior mental energies to wash all knowledge of this evidence from your mind, and you are informing Ellery that plenty of women are whores.

Regardless. The second kind of difference is worse: those that are meaningful, or would be meaningful, but are not true. They look and sound true. You'd like very much for them to be true. Outside, with smug distance between you and Ellery, you could make them true, at least in your mind, the only place that matters. Too bad it isn't your mind. Even worse that your heart is pure and honest. The sun burns too bright for shadows: your excuses have nowhere to hide.

Here's one of your reliable ones. Ellery is different from you, because you are bold and brave, and he is a coward, and you go out and adventure, and he hides in his pathetic dump and mopes. See? Isn't it great? If it were true, it would explain everything. It would mean he's mad at you because he's jealous and inferior. He could still be jealous and inferior— you're not ruling that out— but admittedly you search and find less evidence than you'd like. Ellery is often running, yelling, screwing up, ducking, dodging, nearly dying, talking, lots of talking, mostly talking. If he is a coward, he is a reckless and foolhardy coward. If he mopes, it is from a rank lack of alternatives. If he lives in a dump— and you sense no protest radiating over— he didn't get there the easy way, and it's not because he likes it there. And still he goes out to adventure.

(1/3?)

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Or what else would you call Spelunker's Associated? A fucking picnic? He gets his brains scrambled bimonthly. They call him fucking Madman, Charlotte, because he'll try anything twice. Three times. A fucking coward. And moping? When he's been trying anything? When he (and Thea and Nettie) have been the sole reason any dent's been made in Headspace? When he is trying right now, this very second, to put right the enormous terrible wrong he was responsible for? Moping? Fuck you.

So that's it for that excuse. Here's another. Ellery is different from you, because you are a shiny positive thinker, and he's a grouchy, mopey, angry, sweary negative thinker. (Case in point above.) Even if he tried to accomplish the same thing as you, his foul negative thoughts would invariably sabotage it, while you'd float on through unimpeded. Again, compelling. But true? Compared with an unabashed negative thinker, like your loyal retainer, it might hold water, but Ellery's hardly unabashed. He will give you that he hasn't been too happy lately. He wonders if there's any shocker why. But he will draw the line at shallow defamation, not when you wouldn't know him from a hole in the ground. Not a positive thinker? He corked negative shit up and drank it all the way down and partied and fucked and dodged cops and debts and thugs all night, and then all day he'd nurse a headache and dream of a real home, real life, real change. He was working on that, getting people together, making change, when they found him out and booted him off. You didn't know that, because you don't care.

Then after, underwater. Skip the shock and the adjustment, though plenty die right there. Hell, skip the rest, even Maddie, even though she liked him for his good attitude, and other things, but mainly that. Skip to Headspace. It hardly existed when he came onboard. A guy and his vision, and he came onboard because he liked the vision, believed in it, saw it too. Thought it could help people. Should've been thinking negative, should've saw the flaws and the flags, but it was too late when he did. But not because he was too fucking negative. Negative now— maybe. From good long experience. You'd be too, Charlotte.

So not that either. It must be this, then. Even if you're aligned in all the other ways that matter, this is definitely, 100% different. Ellery makes mistakes— to put it politely— and you don't. You never mess up. You've never done anything wrong in your life.

(2/3)

What? Huh?

Ellery, on his side of the chalk, is nonplussed. You can feel it. He is nonplussed because he can feel your sincerity and your utter conviction. You're not putting it on. You never do anything wrong?

Never! Not in your life. You're a heroine, after all, so you knew practically from birth all the right and proper things to do. And any slight errors you may have made have been rapidly corrected, or else proven not to have been errors at all, so there's really—

Holy shit, you're all fucked up. No fucking wonder. Look at this, Ellery says, and he is staying courteously on his side of the line, but he has reached a hand over. Not really a hand. Not really a line. A wobble of the boundary.

You need to see this, Ellery says, very seriously. I think I can show you. I'll let you go after, not that you should even be wondering about that. I mean, what the fuck would I do with you? Could I even keep you? Fat chance. You need to see this.

All the answers you ever get are deeply, deeply unpleasant.

>[1] See.
>[2] Don't see. Have him leave you alone. You can't deal with this. You're trying to focus.
>[3] You already know what you're going to see. You don't need to see it. (What? Write-in. Pick a backup in case you're wrong.)

>>6144115
>1
I never expected this particular head scrambling to last so long
Will Ellery finally set it right

>[1] See.

>>6144179
>>6144443
>[1]
Writing.

>I never expected this particular head scrambling to last so long
Me neither! Sometimes you have to go where the update takes you. I think this'll be the last one, though.

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>See

But you are bold and brave, not some twitchy coward, and he can't lie to you like this. It's something you need to see. The boundary punctures, you take the hand, and Ellery yanks you inside-out and through yourself.

Or something. How are you supposed to describe it? You are dizzy, disembodied, doubled. You are on one side of the chalk and the other, staring yourself in the eye, back and back and back again, how it was with the mirrors, only nothing's changed. You are on one side of the chalk and Ellery is on the other and you are him, or not. You are him but not vice-versa. You are not calm. He is calm, so you are calm. Haven't you done this before? Well, something enough like it? You can stick it in the brainfuck log later. Come on. Simmer down. Look at this. Or don't. That'll freak you out more. Feel it instead. As in actually feel. With your fingers.

It feels wet and squishy. What does? You do. Your brain does. You took Ellery's hand and he's pressed your hand through your skull and into your brain, which isn't right at all. You haven't had organs in hours. Also, you're not dead, and you have a sense that squishing one's hand around in one's brain leads to death, typically. Maybe you're taking this too literally. None of this is happening. What are you supposed to be feeling?

Your memories.

Oh. Your memories. That's easy enough. You squish around more until you seize upon something rectangular and flexible, which you pull out and wipe on your slacks. A novel, obviously. About you. What else would it be? Is something important about them? Besides the obvious.

Maybe you better open it.

Blindly, you pry the novel open. You can't read it, not having eyes, but you know what it's about: your dramatic origins, your rise to fame and prominence, your continued adventures. It'd make a good novel. A best-seller.

No it fucking wouldn't, Charlotte.

What? Okay, that's just mean. It's not like his memories would make for much of anything. A pamphlet, probably. You could burn it for warmth, you suppose, or stack it in the washcloset for use as—

No. It fucking wouldn't. It's all chopped up. Management got to you. Not just once. Constantly. Feel this.

The novel is taken from you and flipped through and returned, and your hand placed on the page, so you can feel it plainly. A page. Trace your thumb along and yelp as it bleeds: there are sharp edges where you weren't expecting, a vicious gap. A paragraph sliced out by knife.

(1/TBC)

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There's more. The page flips. Another paragraph, on the next page, is missing. Words, too, littered around. The next page is the same, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, on and on. Flip back to the start and try again. The cuts start early. Page two, page three. Deliberate knowing cuts. Manual cuts. The edges are always straight, but not always perfectly parallel: made by a steady but fallible hand. And something else, too. Water damage. Everywhere you touch the paper is wrinkled and thin, sometimes torn. Like the whole thing was laundered by mistake. Much of the ink must've bled— it may be illegible. And that isn't all. Flip far forward. The pages here are less censored, though paragraphs still go missing now and again. What's the matter? Touch the spine and feel ragged fibers. Entire chapters have been ripped out.

And then, right in the middle, something odd. Two pages are stuck together. Did something get on them? Their corners are encrusted with gunk. Smells like metal. You pick at them with your fingernails, to pry them apart, and succeed in loosening a triangle of paper. Stick your finger in and waggle and loosen it a bit more. Slide four fingers in and pull and

>[-2 ID: 1/14]

shriek and gag and hurl the book across the room— something is wrong in there, something rotten and distorted and evil, and did he know that?! That's what he wanted to see?! That you're wrong and bad?! That something is wrong with you, has always been wrong with you, and that's why you're like that?! Don't ask what 'that' is. Ask your Aunt Ruby. Ask your snake. Ask himself. He knows. He can smell it on you. He always did. That's why he loathes you so; why he wants to steal your one moment of glory, isn't it?! To hell with him!

You pry away fast enough to stumble, not just back over the line, but nearly back to yourself: you sense weight, texture, a pulsing, a humming, a desperate radio-crackle, your hand through Ellery's chest, heat from Ellery's chest, light from Ellery's chest, and that's as far as you get before you're suckered onto and dragged back into that bright hot space. You are on one side of the chalk line. Ellery is on the other. He has set up a lounge chair.

Wait, he says. Holy shit. Don't lose it on me. Wrong? What are you talking about? Management did all of that. To you. They gutted you. No fucking wonder you're insane. Are you blaming yourself for that?

That's not it, you say. Something's wrong with you. With you. Something's—

Okay, what?

Something. Those pages. Something. You don't know what. You just know.

(2/TBC)

Sounds like gullshit. Sounds like you're inventing something to— you know— compensate for that. To sort of rationalize it. I can't blame you. But quit kicking your own teeth in, okay? The good news is that Management's tidy, so they're probably storing all your stuff in there. The BrainWyrm. You can go get it back.

>[TO-DO UPDATED: Regain your missing memories (̶.̶.̶.̶i̶f̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶s̶i̶b̶l̶e̶)]

You can...?

Yeah, Ellery says. Guaranteed. Anyways, you were working through something earlier. Before I interrupted. Sorry. I wanted to hear it out, I just— I got distracted. Since you were all shredded. You were saying all those nice things about me. Not nice. Not-mean things about me. Perspective-unskewed things about me. Appreciate it. Also, not 'saying'. Subvocalizing. We can talk about that later, if you care. You don't care. Nevermind. Where were you? You've never done anything wrong?

You're skipping that.

Okay. For the best, I think. I won't kick you while you're down. I'm sorry they fucked your memories, by the way. Don't know if I said that. They do that. They ruin your life. They would've wiped mine if I weren't immune. You know what they did instead, Charlotte. Did you have any more reasons?

For being special? And heroic?

You have to realize that I want to know, too, says Ellery, and kicks back in his lounge chair, and watches.

>[TO BE CONTINUED]

I'M SORRY!!! THIS SEGMENT WAS SUPPOSED TO END FOREVER AGO!!! BUT I KEEP RUNNING OUT OF IRL TIME TO WRAP IT UP!!! TOMORROW FOR REAL!!! (Also, since the connection isn't immediately obvious after my original intention drifted: the memory thing is the direct result of your [THEN] vote.)

>>6144688
Dang so the memories we gave away were just the tip of the iceberg compared to locitis

>>6144743
That's one interpretation!

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>Continued

That doesn't make you feel better. The truth is that you're out of ideas. You guess that your memory is all messed up, and Ellery's isn't, and maybe that's important. Heroes are often amnesiac. Except Fake Ellery's memory is messed up even worse, given the whole dying-and-forgetting loop. You also guess that maybe you're special because Management picked you out to screw with and not Ellery, except they did pick him out to screw with. And they probably picked out loads of other people too. Dozens.

So there's nothing. The critical, pivotal difference between a famous heroine and an annoying nobody— it doesn't exist. Ellery may as well be you. In another time, another place, down a different winding pathway, maybe he would've been, and maybe you'd be half-real and half-Richard and going half-insane in your own red-lit manse, trapped there to save Gil or somebody. But you aren't. Because of chance? Because you got the helpful snake and Ellery got the psycho one? Because of fate? Even though you and him are equivalent, you were marked out differently from the start? Because of divine intervention?

Or just because. There is no reason. The reason is the reason. You are special because you are. You are special because you must be; somebody must be, and that somebody is you. Somebody must be the heroine. There's no such thing as a story without a heroine. Why not you? When you wanted it badly enough? Did Ellery ever want it? All his adventuring's to clean up his own mess. You're not even saying that's wrong: it's better that than do nothing at all. But if his life were going well, would he be here? Or would he be off doing... you don't know what Ellery does when he's normal. Literally anything else? Has he ever been normal? (Not really, he says casually.)

A heroine goes out and does things. She acts. Other people react. For other people, the world changes. A heroine changes the world. That's the entire point, you think, the whole entire point. Other people change; other people are malleable. The heroine has nothing about her to change. She is infinitely dashing and daring and witty and wise. She is fixed, idealized, constant, perfect. All setbacks are temporary. All obstacles are surmounted. The world is always saved— is always saved— and the heroine cannot die— cannot die, unless she wills it. And if she wills it, she'll live forever after in songs and stories and attractive statues in public parks, so even then she's unassailed.

(1/4)

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How does one become such a glorious creature? Trick question. She is born through mighty prophecy, and if she is not, if she comes up from indigency, orphancy, or otherwise unassuming origins, it becomes apparent about one-half to two-thirds of the way through that in fact she was the long-lost daughter of the King, or all along had a powerful magyckal bloodline, or was a heroine all along, but had only forgotten. She was always a heroine all along. There was never any possibility of the bloodline not manifesting, or the memories not surfacing, or of a faithful servant not stumbling upon her: it was what it was because it will be, and it will be because it was. The heroine is always becoming. The heroine always is.

And you are. Because you wanted it? Or did you want it because you were? Trick question. A heroine does not want: a heroine gets, and you saw the future and grabbed it with two hands and bent it back around to meet you. When and how don't matter, not when it was, not when it will be, not when it's utterly true.

>[+3 ID: 4/14]

In the same vein, you will explode Headspace, because you must. Because that's what a heroine does, and you are and must be one. Ellery might have good intentions, however misguided, but he's no hero. He would know if he was. Everybody would. He must know he never was cut out for this. Right?

Ellery on his side of the line on his stupid imaginary lounge chair isn't awed by you. You think he wants you to know that. You think he wants you to know that if he had a face, if he had a look, the look on his face would be a terse half-smile.

Why does it take a heroine to blow up a company? he says. It's dirty work. It's not exactly heroic. Collateral damage and all that.

Not using your plan. It's obviously heroic. It involves saving thousands of people from eternal torment, plus explosions, which are heroic by default. Plus, it's not like he gets to say what is and isn't heroic. You're a heroine, so you do, and what you say is true. It's true because a heroine's heart is pure and honest, so she only ever speaks truth. (Another point against Ellery being any kind of hero, by the way.)

I think your logic is kind of circular, Ellery says.

Yes. Circular. Self-reinforcing, self-sustaining, infinite, spiralling, perfect. Always moving, but always fixed in place. A thing apart. A thing-in-itself. There is no other way. He is clustering himself up, pulling back, because he does not like to see that it's true, when it is, and it must be, and it is. The critical difference between you is: Ellery is Ellery, and you are you.

(2/4)

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Sorry I brought up the memory thing. I think it fucked with your head. Ellery is nervous. Ellery knows you can tell that he's nervous. Ellery knows that you can tell that he can sense what he's up against. He knows that you can read his mind. He knows now, also, as you know now also, that you can say what's on his mind. And your heart is pure and honest, and what you speak is true. So: Ellery is nervous, terribly so, enough that he shakes, enough that he can't bear to lie back, or to maintain his half-smile, which is deteriorating now into a full grimace; he must stand and face you and see what is so plainly apparent, what you have always known, and what you have only just come in to knowing. And he will—

Stop! You fucking bitch!

And you will stand unaffected by his feeble insults, which wash off your glorious heroic hide like water off a glorious heroic gull's wing, and you will graciously allow him to see what you are, which is to say: yourself. And he will be compelled, though strictly speaking neither of you are bodied, to kneel.

Fuck you!

If he resists, he shall feel weak at the knees, or whatever imaginary metaphysical construct corresponds to his knees, and he will have no choice but to fall down upon them, in effect kneeling. And he will know that there was never any future in which he blew up Headspace. It was always you. So he shouldn't feel too bad, even if you're making him— even if he's randomly forced by his own weak knees to kneel. You won't lord it over him or anything. You can do that for plenty of other reasons. He really should be nicer to you.

Why?
Because you're the Herald?

No? Because you're a heroine, and you're being very helpful. You're not the Herald. Did he know that the Herald is a big lizard, by the way? (You attempt to send him pictures of the big lizard.) Do you look like a big lizard? Again, you're a heroine. Though the Herald, from the way all the Managers were talking, seems like she might be some sort of lizard heroine. Snake heroine? Lizard-snake heroine? So maybe you're adjacent.

Because you're a god?

What? When did you ever say anything about God? Doesn't he know that God's a big evil snake? Do you look like a big evil snake? You look even less like a big evil snake than a big lizard. You said you're a heroine, and you are. He ought to be kneeling out of gratefulness, not weak knees, but you'll forgive him this once. You'll let him go, even. He can stand up if he... you mean, he will find that his knees are restored to their usual vigor. And you will take your half of the sun back, if he doesn't mind. This whole situation was very instructive, but not particularly productive. Headspace remains notably un-blown up. So you'll pull back, reform, find yourself—

«Charlotte Fawkins. Speak to me this—»

You're fine, Richard. Find yourself still elbow-deep in Ellery's chest, and extract it, and wipe your hand down your front. Then look Ellery right in his muddy eyeballs. "Did you get all that?"

(3/4)

"Will you kill me?" he says.

"What?"

His tone is cool. "Suppose you explode Headspace. Suppose it's all over. What do I do? Do you think I have fucking anything else to live for? I'm not fixable."

"You don't know that," you say righteously. "You're assuming."

"No. This is the 'fixed' me. This is the me that's all better. All back to fucking normal. You know who is normal? Him." Ellery points to nobody. "Outside. He's me before I screwed it all up. I'm a dead end. Kill me, oh glorious Herald, and make him real. The world loses nothing. It's the only heroic thing to do."

You glance upward. "Like... right now?"

"If you want. That'd be nice. Go ahead and tell me I'm not alive anymore; see if that works. Tell me I don't exist. That I never existed. But if you're in a crunch, do it on the way back. I'll wait around for you."

"Why don't you, er... do it yourself?"

"I want him to live first. And you can do that, can't you? Heroine. Or maybe you'll be able to soon. There's a lot of Law in there, isn't there?" He leans back against the railing. "I can see how this'll all shake out. Don't let me bother you. Help me never bother you again, and we can call all of this even. Don't you think?"

>[1] Okay. He makes some good points. And it's heroic to help people with what they're asking, if it's something you can do.
>>[A] Promise you'll dispose of him and fix Fake Ellery. But not now, for God's sake. You have places to be.
>>[B] Promise. (Lie.)
>>[C] Do it now! You have the tine of the Crown. You saw what Wayne tried to do with it. If you stab him, it'll suck all his Elleryness out, and he'll die. And you can infuse Fake Ellery with the Elleryness and make him real, or at least extra Elleryish. Quick. Easy. Morally correct. Done, done, done.
>>[D] Write-in?

>[2] Nope. You can't promise him any of that. It's unheroic to kill people who are only sad, not evil. Anyways, bye! You're off to commune with the BrainWyrm now! (Then you'll blow it up.)

>[3] Write-in.

>>6145135
>[2] Nope. You can't promise him any of that. It's unheroic to kill people who are only sad, not evil. Anyways, bye! You're off to commune with the BrainWyrm now! (Then you'll blow it up.)
If there's one thing I dislike in fiction, it's someone's inevitable plot-mandated death

>>6145135
>2
He just went to all that effort to convince us we were the same, there was no notable difference that lead to our heroism and his sadness
We wouldn’t give up in his shoes, so he shouldn’t either

>>6145221
>If there's one thing I dislike in fiction, it's someone's inevitable plot-mandated death

I'm not sure if this is what you're saying or not, but while (Real) Ellery might be desperate to die, his death is neither inevitable nor mandatory. I have multiple routes in mind for what might happen to him long-term, any of which are feasible, many of which involve him surviving or living on somehow.

That all being said, unrelated to Ellery's specific case, I have stated publicly before that I don't think the quest has an achievable "golden route." That's not the kind of story this is. The specifics will be 100% dependent on your guys' choices, and you may skew things better or worse or a lot worse, but on the whole I anticipate an imperfect / bittersweet ending. So you're not blindsided, I encourage you to set your expectations accordingly.

>>6145135
>[1] Okay. He makes some good points. And it's heroic to help people with what they're asking, if it's something you can do.
>[B] Promise. (Lie.)

>[2] Nope. You can't promise him any of that. It's unheroic to kill people who are only sad, not evil. Anyways, bye! You're off to commune with the BrainWyrm now! (Then you'll blow it up.)

>>6145135
>>[2] Nope. You can't promise him any of that. It's unheroic to kill people who are only sad, not evil. Anyways, bye! You're off to commune with the BrainWyrm now! (Then you'll blow it up.)

>>6145221
>>6145269
>>6145369
>>6145411
>[2]

>>6145330
>[1B]

No-selling it. Writing.

>Lol lmao

You sigh deeply. "Have we not been over this?"

"Charlotte—"

"It's not heroic to kill people who aren't evil! It's as simple as that. So, nope. I'm not saying I won't help Fake Ellery, since he is an innocent person, and he is being tortured, basically. But I won't promise that either. I don't know what's going to happen in the future!" (Plus, you know better than to make promises to unstable people.)

Ellery curls his lip. "Don't you?"

"No? Heroines can't see the future. That's what oracles are for. And, um, prophetesses." You haven't encountered either of those, have you? Damn. "If I have any portentous dreams about Fake Ellery, I'll let you know, okay? But I really have to go. I don't want the rest of Management to come back. Can you get out of the way before I explode this, by the way?"

"Or what?"

"Or you'll get exploded, and Anthea will be really sad? And mad at me? I don't think you should make her sad, or she might faint. Also, I think you really ought to work out all the killing-yourself stuff out with her, not me? Isn't she the one who cares? She's right up there, by the way."

You point. Ellery looks. He sees the diving suit. "Shit."

"See? Work it out with her. But do it away from here, alright? And do something about Casey. He's creeping me out." He's just still. "Oh! And make sure Gil gets out of here too! If I escape and he's exploded, I won't kill you, but I will subject you to eternal torment... like, um, I'll make you into beetles, or something. I'll work on it. It's up to you to save them! Don't let me down!"

You assume a heroic stance— hands on hips, chin cocked upward, eyes gleaming. You're sure they're gleaming. Ellery's half-smile has returned. "And I don't have a choice?"

"You? No way! You have a duty now! Accept your duty. That's how you become a hero, if you wanted to be. Since I suppose you have other qualities for it." You adjust the hand/hip situation. "Heroes never, ever, ever give up. So don't! Okay, bye!"

You careen around him, nearly smacking into the railing, so you don't have to look and see whether your pep talk worked. It worked on you, which is what matters. You feel more energized already.

>[+1 ID: 5/14]

The BrainWyrm Mk. II throbs before you. It wants you. It'd be very easy to let it have you. But you think you have one more thing to take care of. Richard?

«Yes, Charlie. Is there anything I can—»

Still no. You're doing fine. Great, really. Did he know you were a heroine? Like, really a heroine?

«You always have said so.»

That doesn't answer the question. But it's not the point. You just wanted to let him know that you're going to be blowing up Headspace, which is to say the BrainWyrm, whatever that is. A giant sphere with blinky lights. It runs the place, somehow, you think. Right?

«Yes.»
«You will be entering your mind within it?»

Um, yeah. You don't think you can throw your bomb at it and hope for anything. You'll have to hand-deliver.

(1/3)

«Okay.»
«Take caution, Charlie. It is not built for minds like yours. Think of it as a... a mind-in-itself. Do you remember the protocol?»

Yeah! Like with Gil's. You have to invent a story for it, so you can process. Easy. But thanks, Richard. What you were trying to say was that you might be gone again for a second, so he shouldn't freak out. You'll be back when it's exploded.

«I understand. Thank you for the warning, primrose. I wish there were more I could offer.»
«If you find yourself at a loss, know that I am there with you when you need it. However closely.»
«I love you.»

You too. One sec. You need The Sword, but The Sword would be awfully unwieldy— so a knife, then? You miss your pocketknife. Try that. You shove your hand in your pocket and come away with, er— with an unholy amalgam. It's the shape and size of your pocketknife, but it's on fire like The Sword, and its handle is tortoiseshell like...

Like...

Its handle is tortoiseshell, and instead of lingering on that one second longer, you plunge the knife into your stomach. No pain, no blood. It's paper. The edges of the wound blacken, then curl, then peel, and you turn to Ellery in satisfaction as the fire spreads.

That's the last thing you see: Ellery's face, part resigned, part annoyed, part amused, before your eyes chip off and your weak non-body goes up in smoke. You are— how did Richard put it? "Minimally corporeal"? That. You're all strings. As you're stretched toward the BrainWyrm, and in, you can offer no resistance.

>[-2 ID: 3/14]

—

It is all bright lines and sharp corners and that is all it is. You are glad you spoke to Richard. You would have eventually remembered, but with your thoughts at right angles it could've been years. You are not whatever you are right now. You are Charlotte Fawkins, flesh and blood or close enough, and you are inside the BrainWyrm, which is a place you comprehend. See it. What would it look like? What does it do? It processes... information. All that paper, all that Law. And it outputs... different information? Instructions? Something that tells Headspace how to be.

You think it would be a tall place, a place with shelves and cabinets, a place with very many little drawers and many little files inside. Management wouldn't leave it at that, though. Maybe they'd have some clever automata hooked up inside, all gears and pulleys and silver claws, which could open and close the drawers on command. Maybe they'd be filing away all the new files, or pulling them out when a Manager wanted one in specific. Maybe they do other things? You can't fill in all the gaps here. That ought to be sufficient.

(2/3)

And it is, and that is what it is. It is taller than you thought. The shelves go up to the ceiling, and you cannot see the ceiling. The auto-claws skim along them, whirring and humming. Electrical lights blink on when they open a drawer and off when they close one. Or some of them do. Some of them are blinking repeatedly. Some of the drawers are empty. Some of the auto-claws hang limp. There are scratch marks on the shelves. On the whole, though, work goes on.

"Hello?" you say. "Can you help me? Are my memories in there?"

You are ignored.

>[1] God! Maybe they don't understand who you are. Make it clear that you are Charlotte Fawkins, and that you will not simply *not* be helped. (You'll ask for your memories back by default. Optionally select a suboption if you want more; if you do, it may affect your roll.) [Roll.]
>>[A] Besides you and Ellery, who else has Management been screwing around with?
>>[B] What happened to Lester F, Pat's kidnapped boss / boyfriend?
>>[C] What does the BrainWyrm know about the Herald of the Bright Epoch?
>>[D] What does the BrainWyrm know about snakes?
>>[E] What does the BrainWyrm know about the end of the world?
>>[F] Write-in.

>[2] Maybe you're not saying it in a way they understand? You should try again. (Input command. Write-in.)

>[3] Whatever! You don't need to talk to some stupid claws. They don't look like the boss here. Continue forward.

>[4] Write-in.

>>6145628
Ugh I can’t archive dive into cocidil or whatever it was on my phone for those commands
Might change this later
>1bcd

>>6145628
>[2]
ls -l
I mean,
LIST

>>6145628
>>1bcd

>>6145628
>[3] Whatever! You don't need to talk to some stupid claws. They don't look like the boss here. Continue forward.

>>6145681
>>6145839
>1 B, C, D

>>6145699
>2

>>6145841
>3

Alright. I most likely won't update tonight, but I can take some rolls.

>Please roll me 3 1d100s - 10 (+10 Heroine, +10 HERALD, -10 Natural Language, -20 Unauthorized Access) vs. DC 60 (+20 Four Queries, -10 Worm-Eaten) to get your questions answered!

Spend 1 ID for +10 to all rolls, or spend 1 SV to autosucceed?
>[1] Spend 1 ID
>[2] Spend 1 SV
>[3] No spendy

>>6145681
>>6145839
>1 B, C, D

>>6145699
>2

>>6145841
>3

Alright. I most likely won't update tonight, but I can take some rolls.

>Please roll me 3 1d100s - 10 (+10 Heroine, +10 HERALD, -10 Natural Language, -20 Unauthorized Access) vs. DC 60 (+20 Four Queries, -10 Worm-Eaten) to get your questions answered!

Spend 1 ID for +10 to all rolls, or spend 1 SV to autosucceed? You are at 3/14 ID and 3/? SV.
>[1] Spend 1 ID
>[2] Spend 1 SV
>[3] No spendy

>>6145843
Don't know why this one won't delete, but please ignore it. The only difference is the ID / SV amounts being clarified.

Rolled 75 - 10 (1d100 - 10)

>>6145846
>[3]

Rolled 99 - 10 (1d100 - 10)

>>6145846
Y

Rolled 77 - 10 (1d100 - 10)

>>6145846
>3, NO SPENDY

>>6145848
>>6145852
>>6145856
What quest is this
Can't be Drowned

>>6145848
>>6145852
>>6145856
>65, 89, 67 vs. DC 60 -- Enhanced Success

Very nice. Not writing, though! I have something else I need to write. You know, IRL.

That being said, the NIGHTMARES continue to continue...

>>6143005

>NIGHTMARES VI

In your dream the damn snake broke out and you searched and found it in a log fallen right across the fence. Then you woke and the damn snake was gone and you went straight to the fence and found the log and it was there, looking every ounce as smug a snake could be. Spent the rest of the day netting the snake and moving the log and patching the hole in the fence and the pen. Fed the snake a couple extra fishes to keep it satiated. It liked that, so you got played, you're thinking. Ain't unusual. That's just snakes.

>END VI


-------------------


>NIGHTMARES VII

You don't dream. Or you do, and that's all you are anymore, all infinite, slippery, variable, malleable. If you do dream, maybe you don't notice; maybe nothing changes. You don't sleep, either. Unless you make yourself sleep, that is, and you don't mean that you shut your eyes in a warm dark room: you mean that you have to get in there, inside your guts, and literally find the sleep-thing, and set a timer-thing, and activate it, and then you drop cold wherever you're standing. Even that's not really sleep. When you sleep, time's supposed to pass. When you sleep, you can set it for however long— an hour, a day, a month— and when you wake up, nothing has changed. Everything here is you— everything here moves on your schedule. See? It numbs you, is what it does. It sucks the meaning out of everything conceivable. You went through a long humiliating phase of thinking you were God— really, really thinking it, not joking, not idly entertaining it— and you're past that now. You're not God. You're just a regular, miserable, self-consuming, self-containing little-'g' god, powerless over anything that matters, powerful in everything that doesn't, plus everything that pares you, sliver by sliver, away. Already only bones. Supreme and highmost king of your dingy little cage. And there's no fixing it: that would be something that mattered. Only half-measures and backsliding for you, only lies and empty promises, only time for you, undivided and indivisible, without sleep, without dreams, spooling toward eternity.

>END VII

>>6145974
Poor Ellery

We're back. Writing for the Enhanced Success.

>>6146075
And this is before you declined to help "put him to sleep"! I think letting him live (and not offering any hope about Fake Ellery) is a lot more morally ambiguous than Charlotte thinks it is. But thus is the life of a heroine.

>I'm sorry? Have you not *heard* of me?
>65, 89, 67 vs. DC 60 — Enhanced Success

"Excuse me? I really need to..." No, still nothing. You suppose it makes sense. Metal claw-arms aren't alive and can't hear you. Even though they're moving, they're only following instructions, presumably imputed by some central brain. Realistically, you'd need to speak to that bit to get any results, and even then it might not understand plain language. Maybe it only understands strings, or something. What a pain!

No, there has to be a better way. Even if there is a central brain inside the BrainWyrm (a BrainBrain?), what's to say it can't hear you from here? And what's to say it has to be a whole process? Management was practically kissing your feet after one little white lie, and that was before you made them real and Ellery kneel. And, yes, you are feeling woozy. And, yes, there are a number of things Richard will need to lecture on later. But why should your winning streak end now? If the BrainWyrm II's so smart and complicated, it should've noticed you from the start, but you're happy to give it a push. Here.

"HEY! LISTEN! DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!" You're likely imagining the attention turning to you, given that the claws haven't stopped one bit. "I'M CHARLOTTE FAWKINS! I'M THE HERALD OF THE BRIGHT EPOCH! AND YOU'RE UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT!"

Your voice resonates up the stacks and against the invisible ceiling and back. There is a renewed humming, and for a moment you lose track of your body— are shredded and gridded and analyzed— before you are able to reassert yourself. This time, the claws are stopped. This time, though the BrainWyrm (per its creators) is not alive, not aware, cannot think or know or be anything more than it is, you are sure you hear a voice.

[CHASSIS IDENTIFIED]

Hmm. You're not sure if that's good. You're going to assume it is, though. "Yes! Thank you! That's me, though I really prefer 'Charlotte', or 'Lottie,' even. You're going to give me my memories back, right?"

Like magyck, a single claw begins to slide along its track. You're not done though. "Oh, and also, I want to know all that you have about the Herald. Who is me, to be clear. And all you have about, um, snakes. And..." Is there something you're forgetting? Oh! "...what happened to the boss of Namway? I think his name is Lester? I know you guys kidnapped him, so I'd really like to know where he is, even if you torturefied him already. Could you please— ah!"

(1/2)

Okay, that's a lot of claws moving, and a lot of drawers opening, and a lot of paper being pinched and swung and dropped directly into your waiting arms. It piles up to your chin, then your nose, then past that. You wobble as you bend your knees and drop it to the floor, where it thuds and continues to accumulate. Paper, paper, paper, paper... jar? On top the stack rests a single clear jar, approximately jar-sized, full of black liquid. Out of curiosity, you pick it up and swish it around. Definitely liquid, not goop, but not smooth liquid: it's full of silt and debris and what looks like wet paper scraps. When you set it back down, the top is frothy.

"Are those my memories?" you say. No answer. "Okay, because I am not drinking that. And I am not reading all those. Could you... oh, wait."

It's really easy to forget that it's you imagining all this. You can do whatever you want, pretty much, so you lift your hands up, grasp the top of the paper pile, and press down as hard as you can. Instantaneously it collapses to a quarter of its size. It's a leatherbound book now, which is nice, except that a quarter of the paper pile still goes up to your shins, and there's still a gross jar on top of it. You sigh, heft up the book and the jar, and mash them together, producing a gallon jug full of black liquid and wadded soggy pages. No, that won't work. You're extra-not drinking that. Do you have to drink anything at all? Can't this be simple and portable? How much space do memories take up, anyhow? Your skull isn't that big. Hoist the jug up and press it flat and small.

There. It's a... thingy. It's a white rectangle, about thumb-sized, with a dangly lanyard on one end and a red switch in the middle. The switch is slidey, not flippy, and when you slide it all the way to the left a smaller metal rectangle pokes out of the white rectangle's side. The metal rectangle is hollow, and it has two hollow holes on top. When you slide the switch back, the metal rectangle retracts again.

This thing is equivalent to all those papers, plus the jar? This thing has all your memories and more inside? Maybe Richard would explain if he were here, but his explanation would be long and boring if he were. You're sure you can figure it out for yourself.

>[A] What is the thingy? (Write-in. Optional.) [You don't need to know what it is to decide what to do with it. This prompt is intended to moreso jog your imagination for [B]. Brownie points if you get it right, though.]

>[B1] Do something with the thingy. (Write-in.)
>[B2] You mean, you don't need your memories back *right now.* Maybe you better hang onto the thingy and wait until everything's exploded first. Carry onward.

>[C] Write-in.

May update during the day again tomorrow, no promises, since this was a weak stopping point. Would've continued further if I weren't sleepy, sorry.

>>6146573
>[A] What is the thingy?
Sounds like a telescopic thumb drive

>[B1] Do something with the thingy.
Insert it into... an orifice

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>>6146573
>A
Pic related

>B2
Surely Richard will know how to use it

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>>6146573
>[A]
picrel

>[B2] You mean, you don't need your memories back *right now.* Maybe you better hang onto the thingy and wait until everything's exploded first. Carry onward.

>>6146586
>>6146721
>>6146891
>[A]
Dead on!

>>6146721
>>6146891
>B2

>>6146586
>B1

Hanging onto it for now. Sounds good. Writing -- TBD on second update or not, but I'll at least bang out a first one.

>Thingification

You definitely haven't seen anything like the thingy before, but as a master detectivess, will that stop you? The first step is assuming that all the information is inside, even if it's hard to wrap your head around. It must be squished down really small, is all. You'd imagine that it's contained in the larger white rectangle, not the metal rectangle, which after all is hollow. (You can't store anything inside if it's hollow.) How does one extract the information from the rectangle? The metal bit might have something to do with that. Since it is hollow, something must be made to go inside of it. Maybe the metal rectangle fastens specially to another object, and when it's fastened it transfers all the squished information out of it? But you want the information in your brain. Can you fasten it to your brain?

No use: you're getting into Richard territory there. (After all, this is likely some manner of "snake" device.) You'll wait for him to lecture to you, so you can interrupt, tell him you know everything already, and make him help you do the fastening. Ha! You can envision it already.

>[+1 ID: 4/14]

You attempt to slip the thingy into your front pocket, for future Richard use, but your fingers bump the tine of the crown instead. The skin of your leg is numb around it. Is there really a Manager in there? Managerial essence? Hmm. You're sure Richard will have something to say about that as well. For now, you drop the thingy into your other front pocket.

"Thanks for the help!" you tell the claws, though you're certain they can't listen. "I'm going now, though. See you later!"

When you're dreaming, you can switch locations by losing focus. You're sure you've heard that somewhere. By spinning around in a circle, or by looking down at your feet and up again, or by shutting your eyes tightly, or— as you're attempting right now— moving faster than the dream can keep up with. You're power-walking down the eerily identical rows of shelves, keeping your eyes unfocused, executing 90-degree turns at random, until you start moving faster than you're walking, and the shelves slide away one by one, and a wall with a large circular spiral-marked door looms up before you.

[AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED]

The floor is dragging you toward it. You walk to stay in place and think. Do you have to convince this bit separately? What if you show it the Manager crystal? Before you come to any conclusions, though, the door hisses, swivels, and opens.

[OVERRIDE. CHASSIS DETECTED.]
[AUTHORIZING...]

You're slid right through the door, only to be greeted with an identical door, slightly larger.

[AUTHORIZING...]

(1/2)

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It opens, too, and there's another larger one behind it, which slides open in turn— and on and on, through an extraordinary number of doors, each snapping to attention in your presence, each steadily growing in size, until the final door is higher than you can see, and opens with such a boom and clamor that you have to cover your ears.

The central room of the BrainWyrm is circular and loomlike. Plain straight strings enter through holes set in the wall and are stretched taut by mechanical braces, where auto-claws like the ones outside braid or weave them into complex patterns. The braided strings are carried out by claws or pushed out through hatches. The Law is very, very strong here: your entire body is falling numb.

If you blew this up, you'd blow up the entire operation. Headspace, bereft of Law, would crumble. You're certain. But you think about the scale of the room, and the scale of your plum-can bomb, and you think about the evacuation. You have to evacuate Headspace. You have to collide it, against all natural order, into the Namway manse. If you don't, Ellery will get really mad at you, even madder than he is already.

What did Pat say you'd need to do? Manses aren't real, so you can't really move it anywhere. You need to move it, um, symbolically. That was it. Symbolically.

You're already seeing things symbolically, since this loom-room doesn't exist, but you have a feeling it needs to go further than that. You can't steer a bunch of strings. Was something speaking to you earlier, or was that your imagination?

Well, both. You raise a finger and the claws lift. You swirl your finger and they take hold of the thousands of strings and begin to coil them up, tightly, evenly, to make a spring, a sock, or a snake. Yes, a giant snake, glowing blue.

"Hello," you say. "Who are you?"

The snake doesn't speak. It sways, and spontaneously you remember: "The BrainWyrm," a Manager says. "Our brainchild."

You thought so. "The BrainWyrm."

"Hello, Charlie," Richard says, smoking, newly sober, legs splayed out on the roof of a house in the dark in your mind.

"Hello," you say again cautiously.

(Choices next.)

>[1] There. This is what you needed: the BrainWyrm depicted as alive. If it's alive, if it thinks, then it has a mind; if it has a mind, you can commune with it. No time to waste. Go. (Communion. -1 ID.)

>[2] If you try communing with it, maybe it'll be angry at you, and what then? Authorized or not, your mind is still trapped in here, and you'd rather not be trapped forever. You need to take a gentle, indirect approach. You still have a spacer pill... (Take said spacer pill.)

>[3] Just talk. Maybe you can persuade the BrainWyrm to kick off an evacuation, no freaky trance needed, if you have a pleasant enough conversation.
>>[A] Tell the BrainWyrm that you're the Herald of the Bright Epoch.
>>[B] Ask the BrainWyrm what the Managers were talking about. They called it an egg? A god in a machine? Other stuff?
>>[C] Ask the BrainWyrm how it feels about the suffering of all the Headspace employees/prisoners.
>>[D] Ask the BrainWyrm what its purpose is.
>>[E] Talk abut something else. (Write-in.)

>[4] Write-in.

>>6147035
>>[1] There. This is what you needed: the BrainWyrm depicted as alive. If it's alive, if it thinks, then it has a mind; if it has a mind, you can commune with it. No time to waste. Go. (Communion. -1 ID.)

>>6147035
>[1] There. This is what you needed: the BrainWyrm depicted as alive. If it's alive, if it thinks, then it has a mind; if it has a mind, you can commune with it. No time to waste. Go. (Communion. -1 ID.)

>>6147035
>3BCD

>>6147039
>>6147043
>[1]

>>6147056
>[3]

Called for [1] and writing-ish (I'm going to start pecking away at it).

File: THE WYRM (artist's interp(...).png (2.44 MB, 3000x3000)

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>In

You're not sure what to say after that, so it's a good thing the BrainWyrm is a decent conversationalist. If you can call it conversation. A new memory: "CHARLOTTE. COME HERE," says Richard, a house-sized snake, fangs as tall as you are. "Come here so I can see you."

Giant snakes. Like attracts like, you suppose. You lock your hands behind your back and walk forward several stiff paces.

Jesse grits his teeth and weakly pulls down his collar. He intends for you to come closer.

Closer still. You give the BrainWyrm a narrow look and take another step forward. It's a small one. Your legs are locking up.

"I wouldn't eat you," you tell Madrigal, trapped inside a baby snake. "You'd stick in my teeth, anyhow."

"Did I look concerned?" It's fine. You might need to get up close and personal, anyhow, to accomplish what you mean to accomplish. What else did Pat say about it? She said you'd have to commune with the very manse itself. Symbolically, er, "be" the manse. The BrainWyrm isn't precisely the very manse itself, but isn't it the next best thing? If only you could get close enough to touch it— but you're frozen. Your legs are entirely numb. You don't react well to a lot of Law in one place, and the BrainWyrm is nothing if not a lot of Law. "I think you're going to have to meet me halfway, though."

"Deal!" you tell your unconvinced heist partners, and the BrainWyrm rears up and poises itself above you. With great effort, you lift your arm and brush your fingertips against the curve of its neck. Where are its eyes? It's blind. It's only blue-white coils.

[CHASSIS IDENTIFIED.]
[INITIALIZING TRANSFER.]

The closest thing it has to eyes is the voidish tunnel at its core, which could be a pupil just as well as a maw. When it drops completely over you, you're not all that surprised. Snakes always lie.

>[-1 ID: 3/14]

Which is not to say it isn't what you wanted. You did want to be it. And it wants to be you. What was Headspace for? Not its own sake. The Dawn will come, the Managers said, the Day, the Bright Epoch. The Cause will be fulfilled. The Show, as they say, will be Over. The world will end, and they will walk its shining wastes again...

...but first somebody needs to end it. The WYRM is dug too deep to help. It cannot be coaxed easily. It needs a suitable chassis and the means to enter it. The means is Law. The chassis is you.

Or that is what is intended. Will it succeed here? Not likely. The time and place is wrong. The chassis imperfect. The ritual undone. The more pertinent question is this. What will happen instead?

What's happening is: you are inside the BrainWyrm, or the BrainWyrm is inside you. No difference. What this means is: your consciousness is presently being stretched to its fullest thinnest most fragile possible extent, and well past that. What that is is: bad.

(Choices next.)

>[1] Roll.
>[2] Spend 3 SV. (You are at 3/? SV.)
>[3] Call for help.
>[4] Write-in?

>>6147633
>[4] Grow. If our consciousness isn't big enough, we make more.

>>6147633
>3
Aaaaiiieee Ellery I was wrong bail me out

>>6147633
>>[4] Grow. If our consciousness isn't big enough, we make more.

>>6147631
>>[4] Grow!
What's the worst that can happen? : )

>[2] Spend 3 SV. (You are at 3/? SV.)

>[3] Call for help.

Rolled 95, 55, 35 = 185 (3d100)

>>6147794
>>6147969
>>6148036
>[4]

>>6147795
>>6148209
>[3]

>>6148124
>[2]

Okie dokie. Called for the write-in.

Unfortunately/fortunately (up to you), "growing" in this context is extremely red stuff-coded. What do you think the BrainWyrm wants you to do? As a result, I'm going to roll some dice, and I'm going to need to roll high. DC 80.

>>6148229
>Mitigated Success

Well, you'll be growing all right. Writing shortly. I don't expect this to be a super long update.

>Personal growth

What's a person to do? There's only two sensible options here, really. The first is to strain and snap and be obliterated. The second is to bulge and thicken and be altered totally. Of course (as it will be) (as it was hoped always) you select the latter. Of course you permit the BrainWyrm to be you, as long as you can be it. You were bred for this, Wyrmdaughter, groomed into this, bleached into this, bashed into this shape. You are meant to thrill at this. You are meant to sigh with satisfaction as you are expanded upon, renovated, filled with Law and Law and Law and Law, until you make reality, until you rule reality, until you feel the parasites crawling and itching. You gnash inside your metal eggshell. You have grown. You must hatch. This world is yours to destroy.

Charlotte Fawkins? Who's that?

>[A Model Of Your Manse - One time, when you are about to suffer a Critical Failure OR drop to 0 ID, you may choose to prevent this from happening.]

--------

>You are about to drop to 0 ID. Would you like to prevent this from happening?
>[1] Yes. Expend A Model of Your Manse.
>[2] No. Keep A Model of Your Manse.

>[2] No. Keep A Model of Your Manse.

>>6148256
>[2] No. Keep A Model of Your Manse.

>You are about to drop to 0 ID. Would you like to prevent this from happening?
>[2] No. Keep A Model of Your Manse.

>>6148256
>1
Good thing we didn’t get to use this after Ellery’s headshot

>>6148280
>Good thing we didn’t get to use this after Ellery’s headshot
That option was more of a cutscene than a consequence. Since Richard was always going to bail you out, it didn't feel right to let you "waste" a one-time buff on something with no serious lasting consequences.

I hope everybody understands what the option appearing now implies.

>>6148256
>[1] Yes. Expend A Model of Your Manse.
I regret my write-in

>>6148279


I think I regret my vote. On second thought:

>[1] Yes. Expend A Model of Your Manse.

>>6148299
Serious lasting consequences?

>>6148317
>>6148311
>>6148280
>[1]

>>6148259
>>6148269
>[2]

Calling this one early, but 5 votes is over quorum and I'd like to write on the airplane. You will be expending [A Model of Your Manse].

Good call.

>>6148387
If you hadn't expended it, yes. I can go through it at the end of the thread if people are curious (/ won't get angry at me for hypothetical alternate votes, as has sometimes happened).

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>Hatching

You have never heard of her before. If you had, it'd hardly matter: she is nobody, is nothing, is vapor. Her usefulness has ended. A chassis needs no name and no person. It shall be what it will be; it will be what it is, and what it is now is you. You are not the great sleeping WYRM, not yet, but you could be. When you snap the tethers on this wretched place and suck in its broken remains, perhaps you will be. You will bring this about in short order.

———

Charlotte Fawkins? Who's she? She's you. You think that you may have gotten a bit in over your head. That is the phrasing you are using for now. You think that your mind and body may have been hijacked to make a proto-God. A brain-WYRM. You have a terrible feeling you may have walked into a trap, either set intentionally, or simply fated for you. You, Herald. You, Wyrm-daughter. A heroine of somebody's story. Not your story, Ellery said. Not yours.

>[-3 ID: 0/14]
>[EXPENDED: A Manse of Your Own]
>[ID: 1/14]

By all rights you ought to be nobody, nothing, vapor. This is surely what was intended. You would ordinarily invent about your heroic constitution seeing you through, but you don't have the capacity; you're barely anything right now. You wouldn't know what precisely. (It's not your subject.) What you do know is that you are somewhere very much like, but not at all, your manse. Marble and light, a smell of roses, all balled up close. When you felt for your manse in your mind, it felt physical. Like you had buckshot lodged in your brain. It doesn't feel like you're in your manse. It feels like you're in the buckshot.

You have an abstract sense that Richard is responsible for this, as he was for the "bomb shelter". It's very like him to have redundancies in place. Possibly you'll thank him later— it's easier to thank him when he's nice. You are also preferring to think there'll be a later. You are alive: yes. You are in a good situation: no. You are helpless to whatever's being done to you.

But you are alive. That is the first step. You are alive and the YOU out there is not yet free. That is the second step. You aren't certain what the hold-up is, but you can guess. The red stuff squirms in here, not out there. Power, but no divine mandate. It won't necessarily last. But it's good. Positive thinking.

You suppose it's also good that the YOU appears to want to blow up Headspace. So if all else fails, at least you'll have done that. So nobody can laugh at you.

Anyways. Above all else, hope is not lost. Above all else, there still is a Charlotte Fawkins. And you believe— you must believe, you have no choice but to believe— that this is enough. A name and a person versus the world. It must be enough.

—

(Choices next.)

The below [A] choices are not abstract. I am seeking write-ins of actual moments in the quest (or actual established bits of Charlotte's character) that match the prompt. You can dig around for an exact post in an exact thread or give your half-remembered summary— I don't care about detail level as long as it's accurate. Multiple people can answer the same prompt; one person can answer multiple prompts. The more answers you give overall, the better off Charlotte will be. Let me know if you have any questions.

Also, I'm aware it's Thanksgiving Day and my murican audience will likely be occupied. I'm fine leaving this open an extra day to collect more responses if need be.

>[A1] Remember your full and complete name. (Write-in.)
>[A2] Remember a reason you have for living. (Write-in.)
>[A3] Remember a time you overcame an insurmountable obstacle. (Write-in.)
>[A4] Remember a time you weren't yourself, then were again. (Write-in.)
>[A5] Remember a time from long before you drowned. (Write-in.)
>[A6] Remember a time you were kind. (Write-in.)

>[B1] Remember. You need every ounce of you you can muster. [Use the USB stick.]
>[B2] No. Still not now. You can't risk anything at all, not like this.

>[C] Write-in. If you have some manner of grand motivational speech or pertinent memory/character detail that doesn't fit into [A], you can drop it here. Subject to veto or alteration to fit the mood.

>>6148943
>[A1] Remember your full and complete name.
CHARLOTTE FRANCES FAWKINS
>[A2] Remember a reason you have for living.
Recover the Crown. Fill the Crown. Relic of an ancient age. Marker of the right to rule. Our family's lost heirloom. Cradle it in our hands, and place it on our head, and the ranks of sneering nobles—Birdwells and Harrisons and Falks—will fall to their knees before us.
>[A3] Remember a time you overcame an insurmountable obstacle.
Like when we infiltrated Headspace, evaded security, conned a whole room full of Managers, talked down Ellery and reached the BrainWyrm? Ellery alone would qualify, I'd argue
>[A4] Remember a time you weren't yourself, then were again.
All the multiple times we were Claudia
We've also been Ramona Birdwell
>[A5] Remember a time from long before you drowned.
Long, long ago we hid inside the walls of our home and imagined adventures.
>[A6] Remember a time you were kind.
Like the time we've saved Pat from the Management, for example
Or when we protected Guppy Villalovez and restored her personality and face

ADD MORE, ANONS

>>6149062
Good work, anon, but don't forget to pick a [B]!

>>6148943
>>6149062
Already covered a lot, but I do have some additions
>A2
Have a good time at the next Game Night, and at every Game Night hereafter.
Deliver retribution upon that thief Jean, and also save the world from whatever she's doing
>A3
That first time we dumpstered those Managers during the Pat rescue.
>A4
That first guy we possessed who got WYRMED. Rudy?
>A5
Very recently remembered, falling and skinning our knee and dad patching us up
Aunt Ruby's scolding and etiquette lessons
>A6
Getting Gil out of the manse where he was trapped, all the work to get him a body, tent, and camp position.
Helping Madrigal after we got her inside a snake, trying to save her from Pat.

>B1
From what Ellery said some of the stuff in there is hella traumatic
Don't want to risk it at 1 ID

>>6149073
Oh, yeah
>[B2] No. Still not now. You can't risk anything at all, not like this.

As mentioned, I'm going to leave this prompt open for an extra day to see if we catch any holiday stragglers. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.

>>6148943
>>6149076
>>6149062
+1

>>6149062
>>6149076
>>6149608
>Many [A]s

You guys got the magic number and a few on top. Very nice work.

>>6149608 (?)
>>6149082
>[B2]

>>6149076
>[B1] but "not wanting to risk it" implies that maybe [B2] was intended?

Called for the [A]s and [B2] and writing.

>>6149757
>[B1] but "not wanting to risk it" implies that maybe [B2] was intended?
Oh man
Why did they put 1 right next to 2 on the keyboard
Huge design oversight

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>Hatching II

The important thing to do, you think, is to not get overambitious. Overambitious is what got you here. Start small.

Name. You are Charlotte Fawkins. As long as you ever live you will be Charlotte Fawkins— Charlotte Frances Fawkins, to be precise. Three names to the BrainWyrm's zero. It's hardly anything, but it's yours.

>[+1 ID: 2/14]

History. You don't know who gave you your middle name. It may have been your mother, and you never knew. Or it may have been your father, and you simply forgot. You have forgotten vast swathes of your life. Still, the BrainWyrm has nothing. It may have memories inside it, but it does not remember, and they are not its. It may have a past- at some point some Managers built it— but no history. You may not remember all, or most, but you remember some. Hiding inside the walls with a book and a lamp from the world, or your mother's states, or your Aunt Ruby's admonishments and lessons, or your father's... you don't know if you ever hid from your father. You only remember when you fell and he patched your knee up. There were people who loved you. The BrainWyrm can hardly say that.

>[+2 ID: 4/14]

Purpose. You suppose the BrainWyrm has purposes, in a sense: it runs Headspace, plus it's meant to end the world, or something like that. (You'll figure out the details later.) Does it have purpose, though? No. It enacts the Laws Management designates. It ends the world because Management wills it. It has overtaken you, not because it wants to, but because it must. Because Management has marked you out too. Meanwhile, you are brimming with purpose. When you escape, when Headspace is ashes (you are becoming increasingly confident that it's a 'when'), you will find the Crown, and you will find the vile thief Jean Ramsey, and you will chop her vile head clean off. And you will wear the Crown and save the world and be Queen and go home. Maybe you can bring Gil home. And first, or later, you will attend Game Night, and you will win so hard Madrigal will regret ever having re-invited you. (But she can't un-re-invite you, because you're such a good detectivess.)

>[+3 ID: 7/14]

You are definitely feeling better. Less constricted. Still confined, but your confines have grown enough to fit you. Like you could stand and touch the ceiling, or lay down and touch the walls. Suck it, BrainWyrm! Yes. You are feeling better.

Enough better, though? Enough to break out and wrestle a stupid imaginary machine snake into submission? Remember, you can't be overconfident. Overconfident implies you don't have enough teeth behind your talk. Sit down on the smooth marble floor and count those teeth, Lottie.

(1/3)

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First: have you dealt with something like this before? Yes. Have you come out the other side? Yes. You have been Ramona Birdwell and Rudy Whatshisface and Claudia Fawkins- are still Claudia Fawkins, maybe. (Hopefully she's okay right now.) You have been Richard, or vice-versa. You have been, briefly, beetles. You have been an in retrospect suspicious number of large reptilian creatures, generally angry and hungry and of an end-the-world-type disposition, and you have by and large wrangled them down. Gil might have helped with one or two, but you wrangled them down. The only difference in the present moment, then, is that of scale, and it doesn't sound so bad put like that. Not when your little manse is expanding steadily. It could be a large room, now.

>[+3 ID: 10/14]

Second: have you dealt with something of this scale before? Have you surmounted anything equally insurmountable? Of course you have. Pat warned you to never, ever, ever mess with the Managers, or they'd surely torture-killnap you, and what did you do on your very first meeting? You banished them back to their stupid snake HQ without breaking a sweat. Pat (and Madrigal, and Eloise, and Richard, and Gil, and everybody) told you that nobody could ever blow up Headspace, that it was too big and scary and complicated and Management-filled, and it was all of those things. Except you made it all the way to the end without dying, while only being tortured a little, and you fooled dozens of Management, and you talked down annoying Ellery once and for all, and your brain was blasted with tens of thousands of cubic feet of solid Law, but you survived. You're almost there. Your miniature manse is nearly fully manse-size, though lacking in detail.

>[+3 ID: 13/14]

Third, do you deserve to win? Yes. You've never done anything wrong in your life. And more than that, you've done plenty of good things, too. Heroic things. You saved Pat's life, didn't you? You rescued Madrigal, didn't you? (Or got close enough?) You rescued Guppy, even, from the foul clutches of the Wind Court. You rescued Gil and then you got him a body and a place to stay and a fixed brain and a life back. A better one than what he had. He even agrees that it's better. And now you are going to save the actual lives of thousands of people, and end the tragic torment of thousands of others, for real. Actually for real, like a heroine would do. There is no future where this will not happen. It will.

>[+3 ID: 14/14]

(2/3)

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And there it is. Your manse, with its columns, its lapping font, its grand high windows. The windows aren't shining red anymore, but the red stuff isn't gone: if you cracked through the tile and dug in the earth, you'd pull up tendrils and arteries. It's buried, is all. A problem for later. For now, outside the windows is void.

You have a body, and you go and sit on the edge of the font with it. You dip your hand into the water and blink and feel your consciousness bleed. Feel indignity, terror, dread at the cancer inside you, the parasite, the virus. You are already weakened from the ravages of that worm. There is little you can do to fight back. Reach out through the font and touch the BrainWyrm's inner wall. Reach out and grab it and tug it. Make it, once and for all, yours.

>[+1 MAX ID: 15/15]

You wrench the BrainWyrm Mark II, a net of Law, a squirming hissing snake, in through the font, and as you do your feet slip and your head pounds and you bulge and invert and slam outwards, out against metal with a thunderous CLANG. Not you. The manse. You are knocked flat on your back inside the BrainWyrm Mark II, which has rather uncomfortably become the interior of your manse. Which means: this space is your manse, except even bigger and somewhat spherical, except with a great portion of floorspace taken up by shelves and clanking machines and a complex loom, except with the walls and ceiling completely covered with buttons and lights and levers. But there are columns and there are windows and there is the font, unchanged, burbling. You stand.

You have done it. You have conquered the BrainWyrm. You are no longer at risk of getting horribly possessed and altered and maybe accidentally blowing up Gil or other innocent people or ending the whole world. Hooray! But now what? You need to evacuate everybody, not to mention connect Headspace with the Namway manse. You had hoped that you'd acquire the knowledge of how to do this automatically, but it's not to be. Damn. That's okay, though— you'll just figure out another way. A heroine never gives up!

>[1] Use your heroic intuition to hit buttons randomly until your goal is accomplished. [Tricky roll.]
>[2] Wait, don't you have that crystal full of Managerness? Consult the crystal full of Managerness for instructions. Surely a Manager would know how to work all of this. [Roll.]
>[3] Maybe you un-BrainWyrmed yourself a little too hard. Tap back into it to acquire the knowledge you need. You're strong enough that it can't possess you again, so it's okay. [-3 ID]
>[4] You did all the hard work. Now Richard can do all the lame, boring work, which is practically his job description. Call him in.
>[5] Write-in.

>>6149816
>[3] Maybe you un-BrainWyrmed yourself a little too hard. Tap back into it to acquire the knowledge you need. You're strong enough that it can't possess you again, so it's okay. [-3 ID]

>>6149816
>[2] Wait, don't you have that crystal full of Managerness? Consult the crystal full of Managerness for instructions. Surely a Manager would know how to work all of this. [Roll.]

>[2] Wait, don't you have that crystal full of Managerness? Consult the crystal full of Managerness for instructions. Surely a Manager would know how to work all of this. [Roll.]