(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

[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.]

Private

[howexciting]

... is it not an option because you won't remove it from your mind, or because you can't remove it from your mind?

PRIVATE 5 EVER OR UNTIL OTHERWISE NECESSARY

[memorizza]

[Oh god dammit. He was really hoping to keep this shit on the down low for as long as possible...]

Can't. Once something's in there it's in there.

[Like super glue. Or herpes.]

private

[detectivewonder]

I trained to have functionally perfect recall.

Private

[howexciting]

Then you know what I am struggling with, Tim.

Private

[detectivewonder]

I thought it was a puzzle, not a time bomb. If you've got a way for me not to be a vector for a memetic virus, I'd really like to know.

Private

[solvethepuzzle]

[Well. Shit. This is potentially a problem.]

Interesting information to gain nearly a year after the fact. [He is capable of expressing tone over the psychic network, but there is none here, not even anger.]

Private

[howexciting]

C-

[No, he can't even say it, not even mentally. The sorrow and anger and bitterness he's feeling is still too much to bear. After a long moment to compose himself, he speaks again.]

I have failed in a great many aspects, of late. I'm sorry. I had not anticipated others wanting to keep a record of perhaps one of the worst Jaunts we've been on so far.

Private

[solvethepuzzle]

[He catches it, of course. The same way that he caught the feeling when he'd spoken to Marcozzo earlier. But he'll say nothing about it. It's unimportant to the matter at hand.]

Ridiculous to not anticipate it. [He'd hated Harrogate as much as anyone. But every Jaunt is important to remember.] And dangerous to wait so long when the sigil has been showing up for months, until recently. That's putting a lot of people at risk, especially those of us with perfect recall.

[Yeah, hi Leonardo. Does it surprise you this guy has perfect recall? It shouldn't.]

[nicotinized]

I'm not the first one to share it on the network, so if that's the case, we're all pretty fucked already and have been for months.

[howexciting]

I know Armin shared it publically, and I have spoken to him personally about sharing it. Hopefully, the water in the drain distorted the Sign enough that it will not be an issue for those of us with eidetic memory, as the water likely did when Armin broadcast it, but... this is still something I would rather not leave to chance.

I cannot and will not police anyone's private conversations. I do not know who has been sharing it otherwise.

[nicotinized]

You could have fucking warned the rest of us, you know. [Toshi's tone is a mixture of annoyance and disbelief - mostly that something this big hasn't been mentioned before]

[amadine]

Well, now it's almost guaranteed that someone will write the damnable thing down.

[howexciting]

Not if they understand the gravity of doing so. Being mind controlled is something I am sure most of us Travelers would not want in the first place... let alone from two different sources, the Trumps and the King in Yellow.

[amadine]

Leaving aside the fact that knowledge of the gravity of the situation may well be the reason for some to duplicate it, I think you're underestimating the capacity of some of our number to attempt to fuck a hornet's nest for no other reason than that someone suggested it might be a bad idea.

[nicotinized]

Assuming someone hasn't already, honestly.

[amadine]

...A fair point. Still, the pool of possible mistakes was previously quite a bit smaller.

[awitchdidit]

That's quite the interesting sigil, then. Most magical signs are more meant to give control to the magician that makes them.

[She'd intended to file it away in her mind, but she should probably be more proactive about it.]

But reproducing it in part or obscured is safe? Or safer, at least?

[howexciting]

In that case, it is a magical sign as you know it - for it gives the original creator of the sign, the King in Yellow, control and power.

In parts... should be safe, as long as someone does not recreate it whole. Obscured less so, for it is easier to recreate.

[awitchdidit]

I will bear that in mind. I'm not even to the point where I can create something permanent, and I cannot claim to have a memory as good as a camera, so there's not much I could do with it if for some insane reason I wanted to.

Is there any defense against this? Chiseling out the sign when it's seen physically, for example?

private

[papacerberus]

Leonardo, is it also a threat if it is shared via interface? If so, how can that threat be removed or defended against?

Private

[howexciting]

I... I do not know. My suspicion would be... yes, if the symbol was intact.

There are ways to prevent the King's coming, and rudimentary defense techniques are available... but they will be no match against the King in Yellow if he makes it into Liminal Space.

Private

[shantiprayer]

[She was happy, at first, to hear her Papa speak up on the Network. Then she takes in why, the way he was being. And the reactions other people were having to him. Yes, perhaps Papa had made a mistake. But she bet the people she could hear being angry about it had made plenty of terrible mistakes themselves. She wanted to yell at them and to tell them to stop being such... such meanies! But she knows that wouldn't really help anything. She was a Leader now, and she must act as such. So she speaks to her Papa privately. She'd been running from the King instead of standing to fight and... she was ashamed of that. It was time to fix her own mistakes.]

Uhm, Papa...? When you're feeling better, would you teach me how to defend myself and everyone against the King?

[howexciting]

... yes, I will. Tell me where you are, and I will find you, Seraphita.

[Oops, slipped up on her name there. Hope she doesn't notice.]