public + private

[thornsofmalkav]

Hey, guys? I just came back from this weirdass other place. I'm pretty sure it was like that Tree Hotel that Minako went to back in Newport. I couldn't access the Network or anything. It looked like this:

[And Thorne will stream her memory of looking over the room:

The room is small, intimate. There is no sign of a way in or out. Ping-pong balls crunch underfoot, and empty giftboxes, meticulously wrapped and ribboned, are lined up against one wall, while a humming wall of server blades are racked on the opposite wall. A high-backed, gilt chair with red velvet cushions faces an ornate, full-length mirror, and beside the chair is a mug of steaming hot chocolate on a tiny side table, steaming invitingly from beneath a layer of fifteen half-melted marshmallows.

The stream ends.]

So yeah. That was a thing. Also, uh, I Interfaced with the servers there and they had this to say:

Active Liminal Layers: 4.0
Online Travelers: 84
Online Guests: 1
Offline Travelers: 485

So. Uh. I'm guessing that 'offline' Travelers are the ones in dungeons, but wow. That's a lot of us in dungeons.

[Private to Helena and Naoki:]

Hey. So, uh, I'm asking you two because Helena's a scientist and a woman and Naoki has a lot of alchemy bullshit going on and I'm hoping by now that he's heard from, like, Kanji or something what happened in my dungeon.

Anyway. Uh. I don't suppose you could help me when it comes to birth control? I'd rather not end up having to go back to vampire every other day in lieu of a morning after pill.

Sorry, Naoki. But, like, you're chemistry guy now and I figure it'd be a change from having to counteract whatever heavy metal poisoning we might have been exposed to on a Jaunt.

Comments

[seestheworld]

According to Empress, the 'guest' is baby Rose. She was not particularly forthcoming about the rest of it.

[thornsofmalkav]

... wait, really? What makes her a guest and not a Traveler?

[seestheworld]

She's not getting Marked. Unanimous decision, apparently.

[leftbehindagain]

Huh. Interesting. What do they mean by 'guests'?

[private to Helena and Thorne]

...I hadn't heard, actually, but if you need to worry about birth control now, I guess congratulations are in order. [That was also far more than he needed to know about Thorne's private life, but what can you do.]

It's not a problem I've really considered, so I'd definitely need the backup. But you're right that it'd be a change of pace, at least.

[thornsofmalkav]

Minako says it's Rose.

[private to Helena and Naoki]

Well, I mean, it's only a form change and not permanent. But yeah. Thanks.

[SORRY NAOKI BUT SOMETIMES ADULTS IN RELATIONSHIPS DO THESE THINGS.]

Anyway, it would actually be really beneficial to, like, all the women in liminal if you guys came up with something. So. Yeah.

[leftbehindagain]

...That makes a sort of sense, I guess. They may not be nearly as prepared for babies as they are for the rest of us.

[same ol' private line]

I figured, since you mentioned having the switch as an option.

[So do teenagers in relationships, it's just that Naoto's been more than happy to be a dude as her Plan B, and besides she has so little body fat it may not stick anyway.]

That is very true. I certainly don't mind taking it on as a project - God knows we have the time right now.

[willyousee]

Offline... What about the ones we keep seeing over and over? The ones who always infiltrate and never investigate? Could they be included in that? Or...

Or is that perhaps the number of those who were once Travelers and have since been turned away. [Dungeoned or no.]

But... liminal layers.

[leftbehindagain]

The familiar faces?

Based on some of what Minako-san uncovered in Newport, I'm beginning to wonder if we haven't been thinking about them completely backwards. If that's the case, they wouldn't be part of that number.

[thornsofmalkav]

Huh. What do you mean?

[Color her super curious.]

[thornsofmalkav]

Maybe layers mean different liminal spaces that are separate. Like Minako's Tree Hotel or the one I went to.

... that I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who went to.

[awitchdidit]

There's probably a layer for Travelers, a layer we're meeting the Arcana on, a layer for wherever they exist normally, and something above that. Perhaps whatever is controlling the Arcana, although if we go speculating on that we'll run into Infinite Regression or a Creator Witch.

When there is a Jaunt active, it would be another non-Liminal layer "below" our Liminal Space.

[runawaystory]

485 offline? That's...yeah, that's wow.

...I wonder how many of them are from before Moebius.

[thornsofmalkav]

A shitton I bet. We've had a lot of people come and go since then, but not almost five-hundred people.

[runawaystory]

Which begs the question of just how long they've had us doing this.

[brokers]

The numbers are...unsurprising. Particularly if the tally includes those lost before Moebius, or during other rounds of this game.

[thornsofmalkav]

Just... does this mean that nobody actually goes home? Or do we and the offline status is just an indication that we were here?

[bite_the_hand]

What does that on-line and off-line stuff mean? ...And what's this tree hotel thing?

[Knowing practically nothing about computers and being dungeoned for Newport is a bad combination for this announcement.]

[thornsofmalkav]

I think what they mean in this case is whether or not we're connected to liminal space and the psychic network. Normally it has to do with whether or not computers are connected to a network.

The Tree Hotel is this place Minako went to accidentally when we were in Newport, while you were dungeoned. Basically, it was a hotel room inside of a tree--and our hosts had dumped some Familiar Faces in there.

[awitchdidit]

485, hm? I never even managed 20 unless you get creative with your counting...

I suppose you spoke to the High Priestess?

[thornsofmalkav]

... yeah. Yeah, I did.

[truerevelation]

...how d'you do that, anyway?

But. Shit. If that's dungeons... if they're... is that all of us ever?

[...He thinks he might need a sit down.]

[fridgeninja]

I would have expected about two hundred. That might mean...

It's possible this has been going on for ten years or more.

[thornsofmalkav]

Oh! Right, uh, it's just memory sharing applied to the entire network and not just one person... which probably doesn't help you any.

Okay. So. What you do is you sort of fix the memory of a thing in your mind and then you reach out either to the network as whole or to someone you're with or talking with and... well, I always thought of it as pulling them into the memory, but I guess you could sort of push it out instead.

[neverfeltthatway]

Four hundred eighty five... that's not really surprising. There have probably been between three hundred fifty and four hundred travelers between Moebius and the present. That means there are around two hundred Travelers in dungeons from before Moebius, if we're interpreting this right.

It's hard to judge how long that means we've been doing this, because most of the patterns in jaunt lengths and in how many and how frequently new Travelers arrived were established after Belljar, and even then it hasn't been much of a pattern. But I'd guess this means we've been Traveling for about five or six years. Which is similar to the best estimates we'd already had from the oldest Travelers.

And it would seem to lend credence to the theory that we never return to our home worlds. That we are, in some manner, copies of our original selves.

[thornsofmalkav]

I mean, the Trumps can make bodies. They did some weird bullshit to the Skittles Magic Club after they tried to punch them