[pre-Jaunt Liminal] It's that time again

[capital_asset]

[Raidou's mental voice, as it usually is when matters Questing Country come up, is carefully neutral.]

Well, it's definitely that time again, because I've been dubiously "blessed" with another prophetic nightmare.

It actually felt like it belonged to someone else. It started as a peaceful flyby survey of Questing Country, with occasional interruptions from the Transformed Lands. However, there was a pervasive, continuous sense of wrongness, and of many eyes watching, unbearably. At the end of the nightmare, there was an island floating above Questing Country on which a white wolf with blue eyes was performing the tea ceremony. The wolf spoke in a solemn voice, saying:

"None Us Tis Call Is See More Room Air At Is."

I'm fairly sure the dawning horror I felt as I started to look down at myself in the dream just as I was waking up also belonged to someone else. I woke up before I could see just what horrified that person.

For what it's worth, I also asked about Questing Country requesting our presence in the suggestion box. When I asked if the place itself had, the answer I got was "Yes, and at the same time, a huge, resounding no," and when I asked if the no was from the people in Questing Country, was told that "Whatever the no was from, it doesn't even look like people."

It's not eldritch - I did ask - so there's that, at least. But it's still concerning.

[After a short interval, Raidou chimes in again.]

Also, things are apparently changing Backstage, but while the Spirit Companions are aware, they have not yet told the Oracles.

Comments

[breakaleginhalf]

...I have to wonder if that's not some kind of weird code phrase or cipher or some other obscure bullshit, with the wolf bit.

[capital_asset]

I've been wondering that too.

[breakaleginhalf]

I'd wonder if it's Hermit but his whole thing is green, so I guess that's right out.

[awitchdidit]

That word salad could be an anagram, but if so it's beyond my patience to work out unless I'm sure that's the only explanation. It could also simply be garbled English.

None Us Tis Call: "None of us called" would work with your answers from the Arcana.

Is See More Room Air At Is: this part's more ambiguous. Something about coming to know a larger space? I don't know what to make of "Air At Is", though.

[capital_asset]

I keep mentally substituting 'ere' for 'air.' Not that that makes it any clearer.

[awitchdidit]

A phonetic substitution? Well, you did hear it spoken aloud, not see it written. Wait, if I say it out loud...

[Beatrice paces where she is, muttering the phrase out loud in various cadences, appearing to Raidou doing so as she focuses more on the conversation.]

None Us Tis Call Is See More Room Air At Is.
None UsTis CallIsSee MoreRoomAirAtIs.
None UsTis CallIsSeeMoreRoom AirAtIs.

[She slaps her own head.]

I was overthinking it. It's not a cipher at all. It's Latin.

Non Estis Qualissimorum Eratis.

"None of you are whatsoever you were."

[breakaleginhalf]

Room. Air. ...rumour? If it's just English-adjacent.

[awitchdidit]

Honestly the cadence is wrong for English, and I say that as someone who learned English as about a third language.

Hm. Hang on, though.

[truerevelation]

Now what I'm wonderin' is what they're counting as 'people' here.

[capital_asset]

Given how clear on the concept they haven't been in the past, that's a good question.

[truerevelation]

Probably depends on who's the one doin' the answering too, huh.

You said Questin' Country... think they count Starmovers as people? Or dream buddies? But I guess they're better at lookin' peopley, depending whose they are.

[helborn]

I got something too... but it didn't have much so I wasn't sure if I should say anything.

It was a huge snowflake falling towards me in a silver sky, and a screaming sound like a dial-up modem. Which is not a noise I wanted to hear again, thanks.

[capital_asset]

"Dial-up modem"?

[helborn]

Uh... you used to use it to connect to the internet. It used phone lines rather than its own dedicated channels, and so you'd get a noise like a phone dialing and then a really loud grating noise.

I don't know why it was like that. If you really want to hear it I bet Gil can show you something with it.

[claudiometer]

I know an SOS when I see one, and this is sure as hell an SOS.

It's also a really general message, though. Maybe Questing Country asked... I dunno, the universe at large for help? And we happened to be the ones who got the message.

[capital_asset]

It still makes me wonder who the no was.

[claudiometer]

Someone who hasn't forgiven the Arcana yet? I mean, half the destabilisation problem was the baby Starmovers, but they didn't exactly help matters.

[amadine]

Nightmares, perhaps? Some of them look like people, but a lot more don't - and they may resemble people even less to the Arcana's senses.

[capital_asset]

Maybe.

Do we know how sapient those generally are? A lot of them do give the appearance of sapience, and they can be cunning enough, but so many of them either are or take on projections of Dreamers' anxieties...

[amadine]

No. But if we're going to consider Questing Country itself capable of having opinions, we ought to contemplate the possibility that the darker portions might have their own.

[youandyoualone]

I have had such a nightmare of my own. To whit:

There were two automatons working on the outside of a space ship, such as one uses to voyage between the stars. They were attempting to repair a long spray of metal bristles were coming off an immense grid, the size of a farmer's field.

One automaton said unto the other, "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

His fellow sighed wearily and asked first what a chicken was, then what a road was, before inquiring to the local weather and traffic patterns and so on, calling into question the very logic of such a happenstance?

This repeated, with some variation in detail, for twenty-one times.

The twenty-second time, the the automaton's fellow merely cocked his head to the side, as if truly considering the question, before replying, "To get to the other side."

I awoke in a cold sweat.

[capital_asset]

The Waking Worlds in that universe are mostly spaceworthy... I wonder if some of the trouble isn't coming from there too.

[lightnovelexperiences]

It only just occurred to me that "the other side" might be the afterlife and I missed that that joke had an actual punchline this entire time.

...this is less spooky to me knowing that Mundus has an afterlife administered by not!Anubis, and my heart is getting lighter every day.

I'm sorry you had to go through this.

[okanetendo]

22 is a number we had memorized before Mobeius.

Or rather, 0 to 21.

Hope pointing out the obvious isn't too insulting, I'm used to having to do it back home.

[reallymean]

The subject matter might be frivolous, but a sudden change in behavioral patterns for an automated maintenance system on an active spacecraft could be disastrous. Especially if it's something that could spread throughout a ship's systems.