[Secondish day of Chuck E Cheese Liminal]

[itsananimalthing]

So hey. Everybody. Tell me what all our asshole patrons had to say about Moebius. I already talked to Malik and Matthew, so I got their stories. Already know that we killed one of 'em, so Moebius was a punishment, presumably for that. Death was behind the whole doing-things-over part, and Devil was behind the whole kill-all-your-friends part.

Also there's the tidbit that Lovers claims they don't make the places they send us to, they just pick 'em. Which is interesting. Unless she was lying, though I'm guessin' she wasn't.

But mostly I wanna hear if any of the rest of you talked about Moebius with your Trump. I got most of my memories of that Jaunt back, but not much of anything from that whole thing we apparently did to earn it, and I'm thinkin' that's gonna be pretty important. I'm hopin' somebody else can give me somethin' to go off of to jump-start workin' on that.

Besides, nobody ever talks about this shit, and we're down to too few people who lived it to let people forget about it.

Comments

[returnofme]

Well, you've got one more person who remembers it.

[Now here's a mental voice he hasn't heard in years.]

[itsananimalthing]

[What a surprise. He even says as much.]

Now that's somebody I ain't heard from in years. Luke. When'd you get back to the party?

[They aren't exactly friends, but Luke is slightly more bearable than some of the other vets. He's not Joscelin, after all.]

[returnofme]

Just now, actually. One of the Champs was there to greet me.

[Yes. Champs. Luke's that vintage.]

[itsananimalthing]

The hell, man.

[He has to laugh. He thought that name was ridiculous back then, and he thinks it's even more ridiculous now.]

We don't call 'em that anymore, kid. They wanna be called Arcana. Before that we called 'em Trumps.

[returnofme]

Might as well call them the Idiot's Array since they're basically sideways Sabbac cards.

[itsananimalthing]

Yeah, I don't got that where I come from. Most people call 'em as being from Tarot cards, these days.

So which one was it? Or you keepin' that to yourself? We're all marked by one or another of 'em now.

[returnofme]

... a primitive sort of droid that was hanging upside down?

[And gave him an unsettling flashback when he saw it?]

[itsananimalthing]

Hanged Man. Interesting. Mostly means stayin' in one place, sacrifice, indecision, shit like that. I got Moon-- deception and illusion. Guess it don't say much good about me, when they're picking up people they see themselves in.

[returnofme]

Well. I guess I'm in the same landspeeder, then.

Unless it's because I hung upside down and almost died twice last standard year.

[itsananimalthing]

That one's weird. Nobody really knows why it does anything, since it don't talk much and don't seem to really care about much, either, which fits with the ideals behind it, I guess. At least Moon's chatty, even if you can't trust most of what she says.

[returnofme]

It's still so odd actually being able to talk with them. When I was last here, they were still mysterious and unknowable forces, you know?

[runawaystory]

Luke? Is that you?

[Another for the Moebius vets club. Rosalie can hardly believe it.]

the joke is that I testdrove Luke in the Airlocked mock trial

[returnofme]

Rosalie!

[You can't see him but he's grinning.]

It's me. I was... I can't remember clearly, but I think there was a deep space station. And possibly someone dying...? There was a trial. I remember that much.

But I'm back now, for what it's worth.

[runawaystory]

Space station... Sounds like the Spark. Though I don't think I remember a trial...

Anyway. It's good to have you back.

[returnofme]

No, no, I remember the Spark. I was pretty angry about people trying to crash it. Living somewhere that's only been partially terraformed isn't easy.

[Says the guy who grew up on a moisture farm.]

This was... after. After the Spark, after Belljar... maybe a standard hour after Spock and Sherlock Holmes and all the rest disappeared. I walked off and it felt like I went through a door again--

And I was a series of somewhere elses and then I was here again. We've got a name for doing that, don't we?

[neverfeltthatway]

We called it going on walkabout, except for the past year and a half, that's a name for something else too.

Hey, Luke. I haven't seen you in a long time.

[returnofme]

Hey Armin. I guess technically you still haven't.

[Since he doesn't beam his face at everyone.]

[neverfeltthatway]

[That gets a small smile from him.] I guess I haven't.

Is there anything you want to know about the time you've been gone? I'm not sure how much you've already heard. [And, after all, Armin is the only one who's been around the entire time.]

[returnofme]

... what happened to Joscelin? I couldn't detect him when I got here.

[Joscelin... well, they were friends.]

[neverfeltthatway]

I'm sorry - he's... out of ambit. In a dungeon, somewhere, from what we've heard from our captors. They all are.

Everyone we used to travel with - with you here and Liara gone now, that makes five of us that were present for Moebius.

[runawaystory]

...Oh. I don't know that one, then. You know I went missing toward the end of Belljar.

[reminders of the two years she'd just -- lost -- between Belljar and rejoining the Travelers are always...frustrating.]

[returnofme]

Yeah, I think the space station that wasn't the spark was wherever I was when I was walking about?

And yeah. I know. Sorry for confusing things.

So when did you get back?

[runawaystory]

Must've been... Christ, seven Jaunts, now. No vacations since the last one, thank God.

[returnofme]

Huh.

How bad were they?

[runawaystory]

[Rosalie has to think about that one for a moment.]

Dunno. Not too bad. I mean, after Moebius...

I guess the Junkworld one was particularly unpleasant. Lots of hallucinating and thinking you were going crazy, excepting if you were, then everyone around you was too, and also you were stuck in a rickety spaceship.