A few hours after Souji’s Arcana discussion

[thornsofmalkav]

[Once again, Liminal Space is being subject to a livestream of Thorne making important announcements! This time, she’s in a library study room, with books and papers of her and a Malik-created map-in-progress hung up behind her--and the map in question seems to be to an unusual location indeed.

She is wearing a black pith helmet with a pink band.]

Hi! Thorne here, with Alcuin playing cameraman as usual. Once again, I’ve got some important discoveries to share with people, but in this case these discoveries were made by a group of us. In fact, I pretty much spent the entire expedition we went on recording everyone else’s data. But before I talk about what we found out, I should probably explain about the expedition.

So. Anyway. Before Yensid, Matthew was talking to a couple of us about an attempt to bridge to someone's conversation space that went awry back during Harrogate and the topic of ‘what about the dead Arcana? where are their spaces?’ came up and we kind of decided to try to see if it would be possible to Liminal Bridge our way to Fortune’s space. Then the Jaunt happened, but when we got back we decided to go along with the expedition and get a few friends with, like, relevant skills to help us out.

So not long after the liminal changed, the eight of us set out to find Fortune’s space. That is, Matthew, me, Claudia, Riddick, Alcuin, Liara, Raidou, and Malik. This, by the way, is the map Malik drew of the place we found.

[The ‘camera’ of the livestream switches to a memory of looking over this very same map, lying on a table.]

And this is what it looked like to us.

[The memory switches to show Alcuin’s view of the actual landscape:

Once this used to be a more joyful place - or at least a more exciting one. The walls are a washed-out brown that might once have been red, and the carpet, or what remains of it, a deep grey that might once have been blue. Whatever remains of those original colors is long gone - an effect that extends to the visiting Travelers themselves, if they have anything red or blue on their person. Where vivid color can be found, green, purple, black, and white dominate.

That covers the broken wheels and beheaded status of various winged animals, the clumps of poker chips (always four, nine, thirteen or seventeen), the scattered and torn cards, the wrecked clockwork slot machines (always in groups of four), the torn felt of card tables - if ever a casino died and went to hell, this is it. There are two mostly intact tables, one round and ringed with chairs, one squarish and hosting some kind of half-wrecked card structure. Pride of place in the center of the space goes to a positively giant capsule machine with a glass top and FORTUNA AUTOMAT emblazoned across the front, flanked by headless statues.

Everything else is broken or dilapidated, and covered in shards of broken mirror.

And then the livestream cuts back to Thorne.]

Anyway. We found out a lot of shit while we were there, so I can’t go massively into detail, but I’ll summarize the most important parts and then you guys can either check out the copies of our records of the expedition that we have at the library or ask us for more details. And there’s definitely some cool details in there.

Okay, so the first and most important thing we found out there is that we know why Lovers is back. Remember that roulette wheel table with the thrones? [She indicates it on the map behind her.] That’s evidently where the Arcana hold their big group meetings. One of us did an Interface of the table and it showed part of one of those meetings, with Emperor yelling at Hermit and Death for not having mutually exclusive win conditions and Moon saying that it was one of Emperor’s Travelers who’d been the person to fulfil Hermit’s condition and then there was a lot of yelling, before Chariot banged its fist on the table and told the others to enact Fortune’s contingencies.

So when you combine that with the ball being in the VI slot on the roulette wheel and the position of the glass blocker things, it seems pretty clear that Fortune’s contingencies were basically to add another Arcana back in so it would be an even number again and spin to see who got to come back. Which was Lovers.

The broken thrones around the table also got us some good information. We figured out by the numbers that they belonged to the dead Arcana. A couple of us Interfaced those too and they all gave us information about their archetype and also we think something about how they died.

Hierophant has Lovers talking to someone named Ix. They’re saying that they ‘can’t let them continue like this,’ but they ‘care too much’ to take them out of the game ‘the other way.’ Only it seems that Ix wasn’t Hierophant, but Hermit, so it’s kind of weird. Basically, it’s from when she was imprisoning Hermit before the Grid?

Fortune’s showed a glimpse of a January-type elf carrying an armadillo and then medieval Forest Folk and humans from Ye Olde Yensid looking for their amulet parts. This is important, actually, because Liara found a playing card city in the shape of, like, the Ye Olde version of the city we were in during the last Jaunt and Claudia found out that the slot machines were of elven manufacture dating back to the plague. And Raidou found out when he Interfaced them that there was no way to get a winning combination on them.

Star’s showed this liminal space that was modeled over a Dia de los Muertos celebration where everyone is freaked out--I think it’s after Moebius, because Armin told me at one point that’s why he wasn’t comfortable celebrating Dia--and also people rioting outside a hotel.

And then there’s Temperance, who it turns out was the first to die, not Fortune. Pretty much everything we found indicated that--and Yakumo confirmed it in the discussion Souji started.

But yeah. Temperance’s has someone saying “Lock it down. The whole space. We can’t afford the risk of them getting in here--” and then it got cut off because a fuck-huge Arcanum showed up, but more about that later. Anyway, Yakumo’s already filled in earlier that Lovecraft monsters killed Temperance.

Anyway. There were some cards that had some interesting stuff on them when they were interfaced but you can look those up in our reports or we’ll tell you about them. Because the last thing we need to talk about is this. [She indicates the fuck-huge gashapon in the center of the map.]

That, my dudes, is called the Fortuna Automat and from what we can tell, it’s how they scoop us up. By means unknown, we end up in capsules in the machine and between Jaunts there’s an Arcanum that Fortune trusted who comes in, empties out the machine, and then decides who gets each of us. They do that, strangely enough by working it out by hand on a fuck-huge whiteboard that was lying on the ground by the machine. There’s also a printer that prints off lists of people who are coming out of dungeons soon so they know to go and claim them too.

Anyway, the Fortuna Automat is also pretty much how we got caught. See, while everyone else was doing their thing exploring and taking pictures and Interfacing and stuff, Malik kind of sort of tried to climb up the chute to the Automat and try to get in the big glass bulb with the capsules. He managed to make it up to the top of the chute, but since the way to get into the glass bulb was blocked off, he…

… well, he tried to use Convert on it. And the Arcanum showed up. Alcuin, show them the rest of it.

[Everyone is treated to the memory of staring up at a fucking huge Arcanum that her Chosen will likely recognize as Justice. A short conversation follows.

And then we see Thorne in her pith helmet in the library again.]

So. Yeah. Like I said, we’ve got written records in the library and we’re here to answer questions if you have them? And, like, I for one would definitely be happy to speculate with everyone what some of this shit means, because this trip, like, was super duper informative. These are just, like, the biggest things.

Comments

[haremtrap]

So hey can I ask a stupid question?

Or maybe a whole bunch of stupid questions?

[claudiometer]

No stupid questions here, dude. A lot of this probably makes more sense with a lot of jaunt-world and/or tarot background.

[haremtrap]

Every time I start to feel like I'm getting my bearings I get reminded how much bigger and weirder things can get.

[thornsofmalkav]

Sure. That's what we're here for.

[haremtrap]

Well, okay then...

What's an arcanum? What's a January Elf? What does interfacing mean? What do armadillos have to do with anything? Did we come out of a fucking gashapon machine? I've heard references to moebius but no one will tell me what it IS other than a jaunt that went bad.

To sum it up: What the fuck?

private, double protected

[leftbehindagain]

...Well, that sure sounds like it confirms a theory I had about Star. I really didn't want to be right.

It sounds like you guys had a productive time.

private, double protected 5ever

[thornsofmalkav]

Yeahhhhh. I didn't want to talk about the cause of death stuff and neither did Claudia, but Riddick, Liara, and Malik were pretty insistent.

Speaking of Malik, keep Kanji from doing anything he'll regret?

[leftbehindagain]

If there's good news here, it's that people still have to puzzle out what it means for themselves.

I'll try. If he doesn't chime in on the general expedition, you or Claudia-san should catch him up on the parts that-- you talked him through the Grid problems, that makes a lot of sense in hindsight. [It's the only possible reason he can see for Thorne suddenly mentioning Kanji, in any case.] Anyway, he'd probably like to hear about the rest of it, but you're right that that won't help anything.

[theflyingone]

And Lupa was proposing we do tied rounds more often, [ he says, bitterness coming over the telepathic network. ] Lovers is an overt danger to all of us.

[ He fulfilled Hermit's win condition, and he was one of Emperor's chosen. His only consolation is that he'd gone against Emperor's wishes. Fuck that guy. ]

[thornsofmalkav]

[She's a kind of hot danger, though (Thorne does not say even though she wants to.)]

Well, I mean, we could, but they'd probably just do the roulette wheel thing again and it wouldn't help.

[theflyingone]

That is also what I thought, and currently there is no pressing need to buy time.

[ Psychic Protection I ]

I am sorry. I cannot say for sure, but it seems likely that I was the one who allowed Hermit to tie.

[photonicfighter]

...Justice. That was Justice, who sent you all back.

This is all very useful information. Thank you for taking the risk and trying this.

[thornsofmalkav]

That explains the blindfold. And why she'd come in particular. I mean, since they're next door in the order.

[photonicfighter]

It looked like the sort of approach that I would have expected her to take, too. She's always been very calm and straightforward.

[crouching_sin]

... All right. So what is Interface, and what is Convert?

[He needs that to make a little bit more context out of this... mess.]

[papacerberus]

[Well, Lupa happens to be listening closely while the question is asked, and he can answer it, so!]

Interface is the sharing of data between two beings, or a being and an object. Data can move one way, or both ways, and in general what is sent can be controlled. Only the initiator needs to possess the ability in order for the exchange. I've heard that it can be exhausting, but I've never found that particularly true for myself. A drawback is that it is the raw data, not reconstituted into memories, like we're being shown here.

Convert, to my understanding, is an attempt to alter or overwrite an object or being's data for a specific purpose. The one time it came up as a possibility in the past, the intent was to use it to remove a forcibly programmed loyalty that forced a sentient being into enslavement. The plan at the time was to use Convert to give the enslaved being loyalty to its own needs instead.

[highsteaks]

Wait, that's what a Convert is? Jeez.

[papacerberus]

[There's a heavy sigh when Malik's convert is brought up, but otherwise, Lupa waits until Thorne is done to chime in.]

So if another double win can be arranged, the Arcana brought back will be random. That will require more care.

Can anyone fill me in on what was discovered in the other dead Arcana's space? Did anyone interface with the printer that informs of dungeon arrivals?

I believe I have many more questions to ask Emperor very soon.

[claudiometer]

Matthew and Riddick were the ones who saw the other space up close and personal. One of them might be willing to talk to you about it. [Almost certainly not over the network, if it's Matthew, but.]

I don't think anyone interfaced the printer, but Liara did give it a good non-Interface-y poke.

[all_onis_are_true]

That is... rather a lot to take in, to say the least. That said, there is no way to know if we accidentally are on the way to cause another tie, is there? Or what if the tie is the best answer for the specific world anyway? This sounds like a problem to say the least.

[thornsofmalkav]

Yeah, definitely. Honestly, I think we need to do what's best for the world and just hope that doesn't make the tie that brings back Devil or Tower.

[awitchdidit]

Aaaaahahaha, I knew I liked the way Fortuna set this game up! A literal Demon's Roulette! Perfection.

Of course now we have to hope one of them doesn't fuck up again, unless we want Tower back.

[thornsofmalkav]

Honestly, I kinda wish you'd come with us! It was pretty fucking awesome until we got sent home.

Pretend this isn't hellishly late

[triggerhappytraitor]

...Lovers mentioned something to Ren about a lost sister who cared for Yensid's well being. That she'd be happy to know about the magic coming back.

Re: Pretend this isn't hellishly late

[thornsofmalkav]

Oh Jesus. You think she meant Fortune?