A totally legit announcement

[breakaleginhalf]

Okay, so, what even happened on that one?

Besides, like. Everyone getting mad at Fuckface McGee and proving Jean-Paul Sartre right on the whole "hell is other people" thing. Or one of the Princes knowing about Travelling and Arcana now.

[Gil you can't just slide that in there like literally anyone except you and Raidou knows that--]

Oh, actually - don't go busting in on Arcana spaces without knocking first right now, 'cos apparently you're at a very real risk of being turned into flash-frozen helium, according to Magician.

Comments

[desperate_times_right]

Suppose they can’t just pick extraordinarily lucky people. They’d find a way out.

So, every once in a while someone goes out of ambit and they just ... roll for a new one? Convenient.

[capital_asset]

The selection process is apparently completely random, or so they say.

They actually roll for new Travelers on a fairly regular basis, or at least they have been for a while - new people are usually brought in during the Liminal Space that immediately precedes a Jaunt.

[desperate_times_right]

I came here with a big group, but most of them disappeared maybe a week later. I haven’t really seen anything like that since.

[capital_asset]

Those are much rarer events; I think there have been three of those in my time as a Traveler. I'm not precisely sure what caused the first one, but the second came after Liminal Space was temporarily broken, and the one that brought you here was part of the aftermath of Fortune's death being prevented in the past.

[desperate_times_right]

Is that why all that weird stuff happened? Going to other worlds for such a short time.

[capital_asset]

Yes - they were essentially ripple effects. And Fortune used those to get herself back into the game proper as well.

[Not that it had done her much good in the short run, but still.]

[desperate_times_right]

And then lost on her first Jaunt. That's certainly a thing.

[capital_asset]

On the other hand, she's still alive.

[And apparently planning something, although Raidou's still trying to sort out what he learned there.]

Lovers actually followed a similar trajectory - she cheated her way back into the game during the very last Phase Two Jaunt after all of her chosen fell out of ambit, only to end up losing during the very first Phase Three Jaunt. She's only back in now due to a technicality.

[desperate_times_right]

I've only met her once but that doesn't surprise me. I'm sure she's smug as all hell about it.

[capital_asset]

She subjected us to a drive-in theatre that showed movie versions of our Jaunts up until then - carefully edited in certain cases, of course - interspersed with intermissions that featured her bragging about being back. Everyone was stuck in beds made up to look like vehicles.

Incidentally, the technicality involved Hermit and Death not choosing mutually exclusive win conditions for the preceding Jaunt and ending up in a tie.

[desperate_times_right]

Oh yes, I did get the distinct impression from her that we're fictional characters that she can smack together like a curious child with action figures.

I'd heard that there'd been ties before. You'd think Hermit would be wiser than that.

[capital_asset]

...Action figures?

[Every now and then, Raidou is reminded that he's from a less advanced time than many of the other Travelers from Earth. This is one of those times.]

I don't know if anyone knows what either of them were thinking with that.

[desperate_times_right]

... Ah. Little plastic dolls. Heroes and such.

Her intention was "shipping" - which ... don't ask me, honestly - but I'm not sure whether she's decided who I love yet or not.

[capital_asset]

Ah.

[There is something equivalent to a sigh.]

Well, it is part of her archetype... not that that makes it any more comfortable to know she's doing it.

[desperate_times_right]

They've done much worse things to us of course, but it is a bit off-putting.

[capital_asset]

Very much so.

[Raidou is painfully aware that he and Gil are probably of interest to Lovers, even if Gil had angered her that one time.]

And that's without getting into her apparent affinity for plagues.

[desperate_times_right]

[Yeah, it's probably a more painful situation where Lovers is concerned to be here with your actual SO knowing that she can creepily spy on your relationship, you have her sympathies there]

Plagues? That a 'friendship with the Devil' thing?

[capital_asset]

[Raidou mostly tries not to think about it. He does not always succeed.]

Possibly, although her initial claiming Jaunt took place without Devil and still included a disease of sorts.

[desperate_times_right]

Huh. The only one of hers I've been here for is the Hollywood one, I think, and there wasn't really anything like that there.

[Unless you count the plague of gerbils]

[capital_asset]

[...That might actually count, in a sideways manner.]

Her first Jaunt took place in a high school where people were learning to use powers granted to them by a disease. The second one was her match against Hermit, which featured a disease that originally turned mermaids into cannibalistic berserkers but started spreading to the human population as well. And either she, Devil, or both of them together created a virus that they unleashed on a different Jaunt world where Hermit was temporarily imprisoned - even he was capable of being infected, although he ended up transferring into an uninfected body later on.

[desperate_times_right]

Ah yes, I'd heard about the mermaids. Not the plague, though.

My impression so far has been that their physical bodies don't mean a particular lot to them. Though I suppose the intention there was to incapacitate him temporarily, rather than kill him outright. Can't imagine the others were pleased about it though.

[capital_asset]

The plague was... messy. Sirens could usually keep the Stricken - the mermaids' name for the infected - from losing control with their Songs, but the Empress they'd fled from sent out an infected whale whose song incapacitated the Sirens and made the disease easier to spread. Luckily, the Investigators were able to synthesize a cure, but...

[That had been a painful Jaunt in a lot of ways.]

I don't think their physical bodies are quite natural to them, although they do make it easier to communicate. They also change their aspects every so often, although I'm not sure how frequent it is.

The virus didn't so much incapacitate those infected with it as attempt to alter their minds. That... likely extended to Hermit too, or would have if he hadn't managed to fend it off long enough to switch bodies.

[desperate_times_right]

I get that this is a terrible thing that probably would have happened anyway, and that our people helped out as much as they could, but I can see why locals on these worlds aren't exactly thrilled when they find out that their crisis is a game board.

[capital_asset]

I don't think the gameboard aspect comes to light as often as the rest of it, but even when it doesn't, I think the majority of the worlds who know of us would probably consider us a mixed blessing at best.

[desperate_times_right]

I remember my overlay at the college was pretty miffed that we came for such a short time, caused all that chaos, then left. And what happened there wasn’t really even that bad.