synopsychic | [week 3] ITP: Dragon on the network

[There's a new voice on the network today. It sounds dignified, patrician - even regal.]

Ah, hello. It would appear I have at long last been granted access to your network. I must admit I've been rather curious... but I suppose that's beside the point. I should probably introduce myself; my name is Great Kohryu, and I am in fact the dragon you may have spotted overhead just recently.

[Those Travelers who are paying attention will suddenly find themselves treated to what turns out to be an aerial view of Questing Country, from well above ground level. They can see the islands, including the remains of Mount Widdershins here and there; Dreamers and Travelers can be spotted on the ground, although the view is too high up for all but a few to truly discern their identities.

More importantly, there are the lights. The Opaline Bore appears to be sparkling, and a number of smaller sparkles can be seen on the ground, interspersed among the crowds of people.]

The lights you see are points that I am told may be of interest to you in your investigations. The opaline structure is one of them, and I have also been informed that the smaller lights are a specific type of Spirit Companion... I believe you call them Tesserae? If this information is redundant to you, then I apologize, but I am happy to have been given this chance to share it.

At any rate, it's been pleasant talking to you. Ta for now.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

No, this is extremely news, Great Kohryu.

Do you know what the significance of the lights are?

Oh, those are mine, the effects of a spell. They just denote objects, locations, or in this case individuals of interest.

Vague. Still, the oracles can take it from here.

You've been tremendously helpful.

The spell is only meant to provide a starting point, after all. The enterprising detective - or Oracles, in this case, I suppose - can then take it from there.

Ta.

Well, shit. Good to hear from you, big guy.

Yeah, the Tessarae are the alleged spirit companions for Conductors - but they're not connected to Questing Country whatsoever anymore. It's anyone's guess whether that means they've been replaced by artificial recreations of the Dreamers' original Spirit Companions, or been so thoroughly corrupted by the programming that turns people into Conductors that they're completely compromised and disconnected from their own objective reality in favour of furthering the Conductors'...agenda...

[There's a distinctly embarrassed pause.]

...Grant has. A lot of opinions on this.

Edited 2020-09-28 08:26 (UTC)

Are they entirely unconnected? My understanding was that it wasn't known whether they were or not, but I am admittedly unused to - I believe the term is "backreading" your network.

Although I have definitely been given to understand that this Grant has a great many opinions about a great many things.

I'm... I am making assumptions here, admittedly, based on Grant's bullshit.

But at the same time, he can see connections between people - he can see that Tessarae have a different connection to their Dreamers, it's not a proper Spirit Companion bond, it's the same bond two Conductors have. And he's seen Spirit Companions make connections to Questing Country for... reasons, I guess, when they need updates on things; but he's never seen Tessarae do that, and we're not sure if it's by choice or if they can't. Plus actual Spirit Companions are scared of them, which is telling of something.

[Oh, Priscilla knows this one. Maybe.]

The issue with the Tesserae was created in the Waking World - it might be that whatever they used to make Conductors spread to them too, but isn't flexible enough to not make them seem like more Conductors than weird animals.

Well, Spirit Companions are sort of meant to be a symbiotic-attachment-slash-mentor-guide for Dreamers, so by everything Grant knows they shouldn't be affected by Conducting. But he's only making guesses based on what he can see, he can't actually read into it more than just. Making wild guesses as to the nature of people's relationships. The only ones he knows for sure are True Bond and Conductor bonds, for all he knows he's completely misconstrued the nature of companions.

Whatever this entire thing is that's turning Conductors? It's heavy-handed as shit without question.

Companions don't make sense to me. Why do some of them only talk to their people and others talk in riddles?

Not everything the Snowflake thing created was created knowingly.

And that is one of the reasons Grant doesn't trust companions. Because the entire time he's been here - which, now, he doesn't know if it's been two or eleven months - he has never gotten an answer to that.

All I know is that those restrictions were created by the companions themselves. I don't know why they would do that, though.

If you find an answer, let me know. My archetypes are not inclined towards speculation, and I don't have any good secret-finding spells.

Mine only works when it's related to creation. I think that's how that works, anyway.

Worth mentioning that the Tesserae had no idea about this, and were not happy to learn that they couldn't warn us when the sky was falling. Io was incosolable.

Fuck, I can't believe my spirit companion is named Io. At least name it Glatisant...

Glatisants are actually a phenomenon here - they're what happens when a large group of unbonded Spirit Companions fuses with a free-floating idea.

It's... homeworld bullshit. Io is one of the gods, and it's... angel, I suppose... the Glatisant.

Also, that's distressingly apt to the Mundane Glatisant. I think I'd have a fair idea of which idea if it worked the same way back... not home, exactly.

I'd rather one didn't show up on top of everything else at the moment, I think.

I love how much everything just adds to Grant's theories.

[Which is so sarcastic that it rolls back around to sounding sincere.]

Question for Leah, actually. Was her spirit companion always like this? Did it have a different name, or appearance or anything before?

Leah tells me that he's been named Io since she was a Champion, though they've gone grey - or rather, silver - since she went Conductor. Ace reports the same about Scherzo, AA about Aurora, Pez about Flamma.

Also I am at this point willing to bet a week of meals that these guys are infiltrations of my friends from Mundus, down to their familiars being named after the Gods. Not even the Divine Beasts, the Gods.

If not, then I need to have WORDS with the management.

Edited 2020-09-29 10:37 (UTC)

[week 3] ITP: Dragon on the network

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Let's just bring both of my new network voices in, shall we?

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important correction