The Synodiporia Psychic Network

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.

[Toshi's mental voice sounds a little anxious - he's trying to hide it, but he has no idea when he is, just that finally there are other people around and some of them look familiar]

Hey, what did I miss? Is Souji still here?

[there's a pause, and then he sounds a little calmer, and a little embarrassed]

I got stuck in some weird patch of liminal space where time was all fucked up - watch didn't work right or anything.

So, uh, unrelated to all that grant stuff [ACADEMIA, he does not understand you] - this is the first place we've been in a while with any sort of tech, it might be worthwhile to grab more portable stuff - flashlights, two-way radios, stuff like that. And lots of batteries.

And is there anyone good at building stuff? I've got a favor to ask.