[end of the first day of the jaunt] Tell me baby, how do I turn my back on you, tell me how to leave

[finalizes]

Can we leave the immediate area of where any of us showed up safely?

And does anyone know or knows how to find out which direction would be best to head into if one wants to find the closest free wolf packs?

[When they arrived he figured that he would just stick with his pack and sometimes return to Liminal and it would be good, but he's already fed up with all the noise and all the humans. Plus he could really use some off-time from all this human-mind business. Just running with a wolf pack for a few days or more sounds perfect.

He just needs to find one and hope that it all works out.]

Comments

[finalizes]

Pictures don't show you how big something is, though.

[Aside from how would he find a picture of something that he doesn't know the looks of?]

[theflyingone]

If the lion is next to a fence, you might get a sense of how large it is. Anyway, you could ask one of the librarians to help you search. There are books that are entirely made of photographs.

[finalizes]

[He's still not sure if he wants to head to a library and interact with the people there (however he would identify one, but that's probably an asking around thing). To be fair librarians probably deal with weirder people than werewolves who don't know how to human very well daily. Because while he still doubts that it would help for scale - fences, like almost everything are differently sized in different countries and areas in his experience - , it might at least help with knowing what they look like.]

I might try it.

Maybe someone can [...] google it for me, too. [Because obviously google has always been there.]

im so sorry

[theflyingone]

What is google?

laughs clearly is the bestest person to explain this

[finalizes]

It's a spirit that lives in computers and most phones and that you can ask to search for things for you. Sometimes you can speak to it, but most of the time you have to write. You have to word your question very precisely though. It's a low tier spirit, it can't think much.

clearly

[theflyingone]

[ He doesn't put much stock in talk of spirits, but, well, the Travelers did just come back from a Jaunt with not only spirits but gods as well. ]

It is like the internet?

[ He knew vaguely of the internet, mostly as a repository for cute animal videos. ]

[professorwolf]

[Then they won't stay in the city very long. Lyall has a few ideas.]

Good. I'll round everyone up come afternoon tomorrow, then. That should give you time to, er, research a bit where you're best off going, I imagine.

[finalizes]

It works inside the internet.

The internet is a space that is as big as the natural world, and you would never find anything in it if not for the Google spirits.

[finalizes]

It will.

I'll see you then. [He's looking forward to it.]

[neverfeltthatway]

The immediate area, almost certainly. However, it's unclear whether there are any restrictions on how far we might be able to go. I've always been interested if I'd find it difficult to, say, board a plane while I'm here. I'd test it, if it weren't certain to get my overlay in trouble after we left.

If you're just moving out to the wilderness, however, I would think you should be fine.

[finalizes]

Can't you get someone else to test it for you?

[And that's very useful. Yay for running far and wide.]

[neverfeltthatway]

It's possible the Arcana would punish someone for trying to leave the relevant confines of the jaunt. Perhaps not likely, but it's not without precedent. So I'd prefer to test it myself, when I get a chance - I don't plan to ask someone else to take that risk.

[If they take it on themselves, he won't try to stop them either. That's their decision. But if someone is punished by the Trumps, it won't be on his behalf.]

[finalizes]

...What would such a punishment look like?

[He's going to go anyway, but it's always good to know what you're gambling with.]

[private]// psychic protection ii

[neverfeltthatway]

Once when we rebelled - although I can't tell you exactly what that phrase means, as none of us remember - we were sent to Moebius, where we were tortured and killed by our fellow infiltrators again and again in a time loop, until we managed to kill all of them first, before we had to start again.

Once, the majority of Travelers went on strike, and refused to make any attempt to solve the jaunt, instead only trying to escape. After a couple months of ineffectiveness and frustration, about two thirds of us gave up. The jaunt ended, and we never saw anyone who gave up again.

Those are the main examples. I can't say what the Arcana might do to an individual who looks like he's trying to escape. If enough people are still playing that it doesn't disrupt their game, maybe nothing. Maybe you just won't be able to get very far. But I wouldn't bet anyone else on the chance their response is that benign.

[theflyingone]

I will check if my phone has a Google... spirit. It sounds very useful.

[finalizes]

You can call it by typing "google" into the internet.

[private]

[finalizes]

So they rewarded those who kept trying to escape until the end?

[private forever]// psychic protection ii

[neverfeltthatway]

I don't know that I'd necessarily see getting to continue Traveling as a reward. And it's possible that them disappearing had more to do with their mental state - that giving up like that drives them 'out of ambit' - and that it's not something the Arcana did at all.

[private]

[finalizes]

While we do not know the alternatives, it would at least not seem like a reward for me to not continue to travel. No matter if it killed everyone else or put them into dungeons.

[neverfeltthatway]

Maybe. But there's a difference between rewarding one group and punishing everyone else. And I wouldn't think of what they did there, if anything, as a reward.

[private]

[finalizes]

So they might have punished everyone else for giving up, or those who gave up might have punished themselves by destroying their strength of will.

Either way giving up seems like it was the worse idea.

[neverfeltthatway]

Yes. Just keep in mind, punishing people for giving up doesn't mean they won't punish people for being too persistent too.

[private]

[finalizes]

If you punish everyone, that makes punishments pointless, unless you want to turn those you punish against you or cow them. It means that the punishment doesn't even try to be directive.

[private]

[neverfeltthatway]

I didn't say they might punish everyone. There's a wide spectrum available between giving up hope so that we're passive enough we're no use to them in their game, and being so interested in pushing the limits and finding a way out that we put the game itself at risk. That's where they want us.

[private]

[finalizes]

I wonder if that is equally true for those whose Arcana are still playing, and those who have been eliminated.