The Synodiporia Psychic Network

With Naoki's help, I believe I have hit upon a way to convert Investigators directly into half-Infiltrators, without the intervening step of being a full Infiltrator.

Both he and I are already half-Infiltrating, but if someone who is otherwise Investigating would want to be a test subject for this, then we might have a chance of them becoming an ally among the people of whichever Spire we end up in. That is to say, as far as we can tell, anyone thus converted would become whoever suited them best within a certain vicinity. And since if they were suited to anyone in Fallenheart, they would have already been Infiltrating...

It merits trying, I think.

Since we returned to Harrogate, some seven Jaunts ago, I have upon occasion been subject to disquieting nightmares of possible futures--as I believe some others of us have as well. I had another such dream this last night.

In this dream, I stood watching a black river slowly ice over and I knew, I knew that when the ice stretched from bank to bank, the palpable sense of wrongness I felt at the advent of the ice would become irreversible. There were shapes frozen under that ice and those who surrounded me had forked tongues; they were hissing threats at one another. When I tried to warn them of the ice, they turned away.

This is Anafiel Delaunay, lately of the Walkabout. I was told of the plague of Trojans here by Naoki and so I have come to lend my aid in whatever way I might. I have also brought Sakuya Tachibana, a healer of no mean skill, in hopes that he might be able to treat the computer disease.

If anyone can tell us how we might help, please do. I am not a healer myself, but I have spent some time as a soldier in my youth. I am willing to follow instruction.

Ah, hello? This is Anafiel Delaunay. Did the rest of you make it to the Grid as predicted? There seem to be less of us here, so we assume we are on Walkabout. We seem to have been left at a 'ski resort' called Levi, in a country known as Finland, which is on the peninsula that my world calls Gotland. There are 'men in black' in the ski resort with us, so we are on guard for kidnapping attempts to come.

Some of us, including myself, have been mysteriously transformed into foxes, hounds, and reindeer.

I can pass on messages to any of the others who are there with us. Our numbers include Helena, Yosuke, Korra, Usagi and Mamoru, Allura, Tachibana, Kenzaki and Hajime, Kinji, Keith, Ringabel, Utsusemimaru, Sabetha, Gil, Zed, Captain Marvelous, and Rose Washburn, among others. [Sorry, Inigo, but you didn't give your name at the check-in.]

Ah. Also, does anyone know how Alcuin is doing? As far as I can tell he is with you.

Although I know that clean-up from the battle with the Glatisant and the message gleaned from its remains is likely of the utmost importance as of now--as well as the matter of the unintelligible Familiars and Spirit Companions--I do have some news that I hope will aid in improving the lot of the Adversaries of the earliest era.

Before her vocabulary became limited to a single word, the vixen who attached herself to me instructed me on how I might use Oracular knowledge to glean further knowledge on Sanctions. What I have learned is this:

These Sanctions use the power of existing bonds between people, either the ones doing the Sanctioning or those bonded with the person Sanctioned. As these bonds are real in the Realm of Dreams, they can prevent action just as well as rope or shackles might--although 'tis only acts with intention they can prevent, not accidental acts, for it is the dream of action that they prevent.

They can be entered into willingly and with consent, but unless that consent was explicitly and deliberately part of that Sanction, rescinding consent would not break the Sanction.

After learning this, I wished to know more of how one would break the Sanctions and Fidelite, who was then still in possession of her full vocabulary, advised me to build a Dreamcatcher and have it gather energy in the Questing Country of the earliest era for roughly a week. Fortunately, I was already there after the bridge broke.

Shortly before the battle started, my Dreamcatcher was deemed sufficiently filled by my still-coherent Familiar, and now that the fighting has concluded, I have had time to look within to see what might break the Sanctions. That information was granted to me in a series of three visions:

The first, of bitter and acrimonious arguments between Champions and Oracles, leading to the severing of a bond group, also severing all Sanctions they created.

The second, of a cabal of Adversaries furtively meeting, banding together, forming a fresh bond--overwriting the Sanction with the energy of their alliance.

And the third and most intriguing, of a heavy, metal-hafted mace, light wavering around its head like one reads in reports of desert mirages.