[Open Broadcast]

[protect_and_serve]

Who: Everyone on the telepathic network (which is everyone)
When: Just after the new arrivals show up.
What: Joscelin attempting to get things organized.

[There’s a lot of chatter going on, literally making it hard to hear yourself think, between veterans gossipping and speculating what the new wave of Travelers means, and accidental broadcasts by panicked new arrivals, until one hard-edged thought cuts through it all.]

Enough.

You all need to stop this before we drive ourselves insane.

Anyone with experience on the Network, I want a few organized broadcasts offering help and information to newcomers. We don’t call them Fools.

If you’re new, stay calm. No-one can overhear you unless you’re projecting. Try to divide yourselves as evenly as you can between the people giving you answers. That much is instinctive, you won’t have trouble as long as you can imagine it.

Anyone who’s been here longer and wants to speculate? Don’t do it publicly. Find your own little corners, or keep it off the network.

New telepaths. You’ll need to find someone more experienced more than anyone else does.

And everyone be ready for a new Jaunt.

Comments

[protect_and_serve]

My name is Joscelin Verreuil. I'm standing at the top of the stairs, the blond man in the gray suit with a sword on his back. Speak to me here or there, it doesn't matter.

[wantedittobeagame]

[Hunh... this guy seemed to be the man in charge of this weird... whatever it was. He could take a wild guess at what was happening here, but it was still messed up.]

Eh... used to being called a Fool, so it doesn't bother me. Just not used to things in my head being so talkative.

[He was saying it out loud as he was thinking it; he probably looked like a massive idiot.]

What exactly's going on here?

[protect_and_serve]

They don't mean you're an idiot. They mean like a fortuneteller's card deck. Are you familiar?

[wantedittobeagame]

More than you could ever guess.

[He was actually a bit surprised that he picked up on that. He liked this kid already.]

Name's Tohru Adachi, by the way.

[protect_and_serve]

Were you a Traveler before this? We've had a few who were.

[wantedittobeagame]

[Adachi couldn't help but let out a laugh.]

Nope.

[protect_and_serve]

All right. Well, Tohru... we've all been taken from our worlds, and we're being shuffled between them on someone else's agenda. We call them Trumps, but we've never seen them. All we can do is discuss them in metaphor. Either Tarot, or baseball. A Fool is just someone who hasn't made his first Jaunt. When I first came here, they called them virgins, instead.

[wantedittobeagame]

...yeah, I think I like Fools better.

[He was not turning red, what the hell are you talking about?]

Still, doesn't sound so bad. Could be worse.

[Could be so much worse.]

[protect_and_serve]

We're sent from world to world doing the dirty work of the Trumps. half the time our minds are wiped. You'll make friends, then lose them as they vanish between worlds. Right now there are more new faces than we've seen at once in a long time - because we just lost more Travelers than we've lost in a long time.

Just because it could be worse doesn't mean you can rest easy.

[rozpetac]

I'm not actually dreaming am I?

[ Unless his subconscious was a lot more messed up than he'd ever thought. But if he's not dreaming and these people can actually talk to him...then there's a lot he needs to know and with his luck, not a lot of time to learn it in.]

What do I need to know to survive? And what's a Jaunt?

[protect_and_serve]

This place might be a nightmare, but you're awake in it.

You've been taken from your world. From here, you'll be cast into other worlds with the rest of us. Each new trip, we call a Jaunt.

[rozpetac]

Cast into other worlds? For what purpose?

[protect_and_serve]

A different purpose in every world. They want us to meddle for them. And they don't like telling us clearly what to do.

[rozpetac]

So we're supposed to meddle and solve whatever they need or want us to solve but they're not going to tell us what that is? That's not even helpful. Are we just stuck there until we magically happen to solve whatever the hell it is? Do they pull us out if we never get close or if we're in danger?

What happens if someone kills us or tries to kill us on a Jaunt - do we wake up back here in whatever the hell this freaky fantasy mind palace is?

[protect_and_serve]

Yes. We do. One of the few graces of the Jaunts.

Every trip, some of us have our memories replaced with memories of natives of that world. Whatever those people are involved in, that's what the rest of us need to interfere with.

[rozpetac]

So we're not just worldjumping, we're body switching? That's a little messed up. Who thought this up even?

[protect_and_serve]

Mind switching. The bodies remain the same... usually.

We call them the Trumps.

[abetterway]

Is the sword for combat or decoration?

[protect_and_serve]

I use daggers for combat. The sword is for killing.

[abetterway]

I see. [It's fortunate, that emotion doesn't broadcast here.]

Do you use it often?

[protect_and_serve]

I can count the number of times I've drawn it without running out of fingers.

[abetterway]

I'm glad to hear that.

...You do have ten, I hope.

[protect_and_serve]

Yes.

I.. used to be a Cassiline Brother. We kill only when the life of a charge is threatened, and then only when presented with no choice.

[abetterway]

...I can appreciate that. [Not agree, never agree, but appreciate.] What happens, then, when one of us dies?

[protect_and_serve]

If we die on a jaunt, we revive here. Sometimes there are... complications.

So far, no-one has died here, and I mean to keep it that way.