(no subject)

[nicotinized]

So. We had another one of our captors show up on the Jaunt. I spoke with him - he gave me the name Hakan Ceasar, but now that I'm myself again, I think it's pretty safe to say it was the Emperor. He told me he was there to 'ensure the orderly transference of power', which as far as I know was the shift in government in Sarmatia. Why that specifically was important, I don't know, but it seems like it was.

For the newbies - you've probably at least been given the bare bones of who and what the Trumps are, but I thought it might help some to have an idea of the timeline, given how frequently people arrive and vanish. To my knowledge, the first Trump to make themselves known to Travellers was the Fool, somewhere around a year ago, in the ocean world. This wasn't the first Jaunt ever, mind - I know of at least six that took place before that, and nobody can remember earlier than that, so there may have been more. The Jaunt after that, with the crazy zombie shit - no Trumps anybody knows of, but that glitched out somehow. Fuck knows what was going on there. The fancy solstice ball had the Sun and the Moon. Harrowgate, no Trumps again, but the first appearance a figure called the King in Yellow. Other people can probably tell you more about that, but my understanding is that... he? it? isn't a Trump, but may be as powerful as them, and is bad fucking news. His sigil has showed up a few times in Liminal Space. [There's a brief image of the triskelion symbol blocking the drain in an industrial sink] If you see it, mention it psychically so someone who knows what they're doing can deal with it.

[A pause, then he continues]
Anyway, after that - the Lovers appeared at the school, in the form of an AI system. Before that, the Trumps had appeared as humans - on the outside, anyway. The GRID is where shit started to get really crazy, though we got some answers, too. The Magician, under the guise of ROSE, appeared to be attempting the revival or freeing of the Hermit, known there as SAGE. The Devil and the Lovers attempted to influence travellers to prevent this - the Devil called SAGE a criminal, and said that his execution was 'within the rules', whatever the rules are. He also said that our excursions were 'sanctioned'. The High Priestess spoke with and marked one traveller, but did not manifest.

At some point, the Magician told people that four Trumps were dead - the Hierophant, Fortune, Temperance, and the Star. In liminal space afterwards, there was a phone that allowed calling any of the Trumps that had previously made themselves known, and one said that of the four dead, one was killed by an external force of some sort, and the other three were due to internal conflict. Which is which, I'm not sure. I spoke to the Sun briefly, who was polite but not forthcoming. As far as I know, nobody was marked for speaking to them over the phone.

In Questing Country, the High Priestess appeared, though I have no details about it. Nobody mentioned seeing any Trumps in the Jaunt after that, Melasurei, though from what I gathered, things didn't go well in general there. In Nova Veniza, both the Chariot and the Hanged Man appeared, and the Chariot was apparently fairly affable. And that's everything up to now.

The Trumps work under some sort of set of rules, though I don't know how closely bound by them they are. We're pawns, and the purpose of whatever little game they're playing at isn't clear. It may just be a game, to them - but what the Emperor told me made it sounds like there were higher stakes involved, and that he was aware of these. They're apparently limited to marking five travellers each, though I don't have a record on who's been marked and who hasn't. Some people have been public about it, while others have not. There's been speculation that once every traveller is marked, the nature of what we do may shift to something other than the Jaunts. But there's a lot we don't know.

Comments

[creativefool]

The Emperor was hangin' around with you guys, huh? We had the Empress with us in Misericordia. No wonder she was talkin' about her husband. Looks like they were pullin' a double act.

Seriously, though. Good thinking on givin' folks a refresher course. Hell, I didn't know what sort of world Fool showed up in... way before my time.

[nicotinized]

...Huh. I think this is the first time Trumps have showed up both places when we all got split up.

And yeah, I realized a lot of people have gone who were here then - not a lot of us left who remember most of it.

[shiroganeheir]

I know of at least two people who were marked on the telephone, for the sake of completeness.

I am uncertain if they wish their identities known, however.

[nicotinized]

If they don't want to share, that's fine. Nobody had mentioned it happening, though, so it's good to know.

[detectivewonder]

Can you tell us who they were marked by?

[shantiprayer]

I was one of them. That's when I was marked by the Sun.

[For completeness' sake she begins streaming "video" from her own point of view, showing a mark on her left forearm that looked to be a stylized, egg-shaped sun with a fiery "19" within it. Once that's done she switches the sensory stream back off. Uncharacteristically for her she was using thoughts only rather than projecting her voice over the network.]

Thank you for not saying anything without knowing, but I'm not not worried about hiding it. Or the information I got from it. I'd actually said all this on the Network before but I guess since it was deep into another conversation, a lot of people had tuned it out by then.

[claudiometer]

...I'd have to look up the first name, but if I remember right, he was calling himself Emperor Emperor. Not terribly subtle.

I talked to Empress some. Nice lady. She asked a few probing questions about my overlay and seemed relieved when I answered them. Said something was holding and that boded well. I think she was worried about something breaking the infiltrations, for some reason?

I'm also pretty sure the dead-Trumps business came up in the Hellmart Liminal Space before the Grid. Maybe it got confirmed during the jaunt, I wouldn't know. [She was holed up in an isolated warehouse for the whole thing and immediately shunted off into shiny gold nonsense when it ended.] But I definitely remember someone mentioning that they'd come up as missing in Liminal.

[shiroganeheir]

The first time that the dead Trumps were mentioned and named was in the Junes Hell by Margaret-san, a person from Souji's and my world who works with the, er, more mystical side of Arcana. I was not present for it, you would have to ask Souji more specifically.

[nicotinized]

[You can almost hear Toshi rolling his eyes] Seriously? I thought the Trumps were smarter than that. Though he seemed very.... literal. Less like he was being deliberately obtuse and more like he was just naturally that way.

And thanks - I know it got brought up during one of the psychic discussions, but 'when' can be kind of hard to keep track of sometimes.

[shantiprayer]

She was probably worried because the Illuminants managed to break into Liminal Space. I don't think an overlay has been able to make it in before. I'm not sure even the Trumps knew how that would effect things.

[awitchdidit]

My my, this is very interesting information! It would probably be good to be in the habit of presenting it every time new pawns are summoned.

[She's actually not being facetious for once, this is fantastic.]

I can confirm that someone who was almost certainly the Empress appeared in Misericordia, and as far as I can tell she was checking to make sure that the aliases we unaware actors were forced into were holding. Making sure the game was staying within the rules, as it were.

I almost got marked, but the part I was playing wasn't ready to accept that much responsibility. I wonder if I dodged a bullet or missed an opportunity...

[nicotinized]

Yeah - we're not as good about sharing information as we should be. I'm going to make some physical copies of this, too, once more people weigh in. Little more permanent that way.

It seems like both the Emperor and Empress were concerned with oversight, this time around, rather than direct manipulation...

[runawaystory]

Why do the Trumps care about any of the things they make us do, anyway?

But this is some good stuff, thanks for the info.

[nicotinized]

If any of us knew that, we'd probably be a lot better off, honestly.

You're welcome.

[detectivewonder]

I think they defend the interests of their archetypes.

[leftbehindagain]

Melasurei was the one before Questing Country, not after.

More to the point, Maria-chan just told me something very interesting. For those who've missed it so far, we were just in the same world as Dolorosa - color magic, Illuminants, knee-deep in dragons, all that good stuff.

The Illuminants regrouped, and according to Maria-chan, they broke into Liminal Space and tried to, in her words, 'punch the Trumps.' Obviously they didn't get very far, but the only other outside influence I can think of actually getting in here is the King in Yellow - incidentally, has there been any sign of the sigil since the camp factory?

It sounds like, from what the people who bumped into one of the pair have said, they were worried about their influence on the jaunt worlds being shaken by that.

[creativefool]

...oh, hell. She told me about "goin' to punch Trumps". She never said where she was when it happened.

Damn.

[neverfeltthatway]

They what?!

And no, I haven't been able to find it since then...

[nicotinized]

...God. I thought they'd been dealt with for good. Seems like everything that can touch the Trumps would probably kill us all first on the way over.

[comebewe]

Does anyone know how the Hermit was trapped in the first place?

Private

[howexciting]

... the Lovers and the Devil supposedly trapped him in a body of their own making, which was tied to the Grid.

[They haven't officially met yet, but that's not stopping Leo. Questions need answers.]

[what_do_you_see]

Should be a meeting.

[nicotinized]

Go ahead and organize one if you want. I'm not really up for herding cats, myself.

[howexciting]

[Leonardo didn't really want to speak to anyone, he didn't want to but something Toshi's done--]

Do not ever show the Yellow Sign again. Show it in three parts, if you must, but never show it to someone completely. Anyone in possession of that Sigil, or a copy of the sign, even by accident - on a piece of paper, on a necklace, even a mental picture - is at risk for being mind controlled or possessed by the King in Yellow should he ever invade Liminal Space. Perhaps even when he feels the time is right, regardless of whether he is in Liminal Space or not. Even I am not sure.

If you are listening to this, and you can mentally archive information - delete every instance of the Yellow Sign. Destroy every copy of it you have. If you are writing notes in a physical journal, tear out that page and burn it. Do not ever write it down in its entirety.

private; LOLOL WELP

[memorizza]

[Delete it, huh? ...No can do, buddy.]

...How about if deleting it's not an option?

[Clearly, this is Very Serious Business, and so for once there's nothing light or playful in Worick's tone; he's already heard all about the tentacles and insanity and he is NOT ABOUT THAT.]

[detectivewonder]

Harrogate had seriously heavy Judgment symbolism. But that might just be the fact that we were averting an apocalypse. Brooklyn, we had a Romeo and Juliet story - Lovers, maybe Empress? Dolorosa, Emperor would make sense, Empress might. Ivory Tower, if we didn't know better I'd say Hermit, but could have been Magician, could maybe have been Tower.

The Shoals, that makes sense for Fool. Start of a Journey. Moon makes sense for a Masquerade, Sun only in that they were dealing with literal stellar phenomena. Grid makes sense for the Hermit, Heartbreak Academy for the Lovers... Melasurei could have been a lot of them, from my perspective...

I think they have thematic concerns, and they stick to them. Always.

[nicotinized]

That does seem to be the case. If I had to make a stab at earlier ones - Mobius might be tied to Death or the Tower. Or both, but that's a pretty fucked up possibility. Belljar... the Hanged Man, maybe? That place was pretty static. The Spark is hard - maybe the Devil, but that doesn't seem quite right...

[seestheworld]

SAGE said he left for the Grid to "find his own way." He wouldn't tell me whether the Cryptos he took with him were originally other Travelers, though; he said they were...

[She trails off for a moment, trying to remember his exact words.]

...Oh, right. "Beings of unique dignity entitled to the privacy afforded them by the obscurity of time and distance." Or something to that effect.

He also said that three of the Trumps were already dead by the time he left for the Grid, and that their deaths were "not unrelated" to his leaving. He wouldn't tell me which ones were dead at that point, or who or what killed them, but he did admit that there were rules preventing them from giving us that information.

[inexecution]

Meanwhile, the Devil described SAGE as a criminal, and we were warned away from the Jaunt itself by the Lovers. If the deaths were 'not unrelated' to the Hermit's leaving, can we be sure he didn't have something to do with it?

re: TRUMP SYMBOLOGY

[memorizza]

[WELP IN THE INTEREST OF COMPLETENESS:]

Got myself some shiny new ink from dragontown, since we're being thorough. [He's got no reason to hide i that he can think of, so consider this his Official Statement.] I think I heard a few of you sayin' that was the Empress back there, but all I can contribute to IDing her is that she definitely looked that part.

[Very regal, very poised.

...Also Mega Hot, but given the seriousness of this conversation he's keeping that tidbit to himself until it actually becomes relevant.]

Anyway, sounds like they're not the most forthcoming with their identities so if anybody's got the time, I wouldn't say no to a quick rundown of the symbolism we gotta look out for. Feels like I'm flyin' blind without it and that doesn't usually end well.

[DO HIM A SOLID PLZ AND THANK. ...Or help him him everybody else, whichever.]

Visual

[howexciting]

[Leonardo livestreams his senses, and shows a rather interesting sight - painted terracotta figures of each Trump he has ever come into contact with, made with Liminal Manipulation from his own memory.

First he shows a bandaged man with a scruffy, flea-ridden dog. The plaque at its feet says The Fool. Next comes a blue-haired woman in a tight body-suit lit up with blue LEDs - the plaque beneath her says The Magician.

There is a little bit of space between those figures and the next. Next comes the figure Worick is already familiar with, in exacting detail - a beautiful woman marked as The Empress, right next to her stern husband who is marked The Emperor.

There is one space marked by a gravestone, and then, there is a strange woman standing next to a computer terminal with her face on the screen, both marked The Lovers. Beside her, there is a Trucidaphone marked the Chariot (from description). After that, a space, and then both a man dressed in white and a white dog, each marked as The Hermit. There is another gravestone, then another space, and then there is upside-down Trucidaphone, doing a bit of a hand-stand while hanging from terracotta wires, labeled The Hanged Man (from description).

Finally, far away from the other figures, there are two statues dressed in masquerade finery, one clad in a silver half-moon mask and the other clad in a golden radiant mask, labeled The Moon and The Sun, respectively.

There are empty pedestals for The High Priestess (between the Magician and the Empress) and The Devil (in the large gap between the Hanged Man and the Moon, with two spaces on either side, the rightmost of each set of two marked by gravestones again), but Leonardo did not meet either of them nor get a description from anyone else.]