You turn your attention to Marlow as you retrieve your cell phone. "How long ago was this picture taken...?"
"I'd say..." he takes a moment to mull it over. "'Bout seven years ago?"
"...So the ex-librarian would be coming up on her late twenties, early thirties," you mutter. You take a picture of the photograph; your phone's not great to begin with, so the already poor image quality is even worse in digital picture-of-a-picture form.
You had hoped further decontextualizing the image from the original photo would make the former librarian easier to notice, but that does not appear to be the case. Still, she's clear enough if one actively looks for her--clear enough that you could show the picture to others if need be.
There's a brief pause; Kate slowly looks to you... and eventually speaks up. "You're going back in tonight... aren't you?"
You start to think about it... but there's not really much to think about. "I have to check on the countdown," you tell her. "I probably need to stop the countdown but I'm still figuring that part out."
Kate nods.
Hesitates.
"I'm uh..."
Jesus Christ is she hesitating.
"I... I'm pretty sure it's my turn, but I'm taking the night off. I'll still help with the house and shit, but like--" You're not used to seeing her this... reserved. She finally forces it out. "--I don't know man, last night fucking sucked."
You're... genuinely taken aback. "What the fuck happened...?"
"It didn't..." She takes a breath. "It didn't put us in the dungeon. It put us somewhere else. Look, I think we should let Marlow in on all this. He's the most anti-establishment motherfucker I know, the dream should be normal if you're there, and I don't know if Cici made it out of last night any better than I did. You need to take somebody, and we can train Marlow."
You stare at Kate for a moment, struggling for what to say. "Kate, I--"
"You need to take somebody," she repeats. "Don't go in there alone."
You slowly turn to Marlow, who has fallen quiet but is hiding his confusion well.
Your first instinct is that you should consult Cici.
...But you quickly realize it'd be a pointless gesture, as you don't really have much of a choice.
What you're doing is dangerous--the entire situation is, in a variety of ways. If Kate's right and Cici doesn't feel up to it tonight, you have no alternate accomplices. You also agree with Kate: going in alone is too risky, and that's probably true even without her knowledge of whatever happened last night.
Further, if Cici claims to feel up to it but you don't offer any alternative (aside from calling the whole thing off, also too risky when there's a literal countdown involved), then you're not going to be convinced that she isn't just giving into the pressure and forcing herself into the dungeon against her own will. If you have other options, she can be open and honest about what she wants to do, versus what she feels like she has to do.
You could get Cici's opinions on other alternative accomplices, but the longer you wait the less time the involved party has to think the issue over. Ambushing someone with your nightmare dungeon and only minutes to mull it over would be a dick move; every second you spend even thinking about this is a second that Marlow can't be weighing the risk with all the information needed.
If you want to dungeon tonight at all, you kind of need to drop the bomb on him ASAP.
It's been like five whole seconds of total silence. You're pretty sure it's your turn to talk. "Marlow, we... we know shit there's crimes against knowing.
I think. I'm pretty sure.
We're doing dangerous shit. It's... it's probably fucking us up mentally, it's so illegal we're still trying to figure out how illegal it is, and at least one person has exploded. Franklin might be in jail for something adjacent to what we're doing. We don't know. That... it's the whole problem, we don't know. Our whole fucking world's getting flipped upside down one day after another. What I know about myself and what shit is and how things work is like, a different dimension entirely from what it all was a week ago and it just. Keeps. Fucking. Going.
We have learned... so god damn much, and we still don't have the slightest fucking clue what we're getting into.
I don't even know what it IS. It's a house but it's becoming more than a house but it was never just a house, it was getting used as some kind of fucked up nightmare door to The Trauma Zone if that's not a NEW feature. We might be losing our minds. Every paradigm is shifting without a clutch and I don't know who I am anymore.
Jesus Christ, Marlow, you have kids.
I don't know how I could have even started to fucking ask you to jump into this god damn hole with us. I am so sorry."
Nailed it.
Kate looks stunned.
Marlow...
Marlow smiles. Just a faint... mirthful smile, perhaps the first time you've ever seen one not attached to a portrait of Santa Claus.
He says,
quite simply,
"Things... man was not meant to know."
Marlow continues.
"That's what Franklin called it.
He said the real truth, the... the biggest truth...
he said the truth is a light that never warms.
Gave me a... a big speech, like you just did. He told me everything the truth had taken from him, all the damage it'd caused, how it brought nothing but misery to know and only helped him realize how... how insignificant he was. He made the point that I can't unlearn something--it's permanent. You learn something, it's there forever. Real fancy speech and I'm not doing it justice. I'll grant ya, yours was pretty good too."
He pauses. Sniffs.
"...And hell, I bought it. He knew some shit I didn't about the shit I didn't know, so I walked away. I trusted him, and I let it go. Franklin knows something big, he assures me it doesn't help and it just messes you up, and I go on livin' my life. I didn't figure I needed to know everything. I don't know how to make my own beer or drive a tank, and we're all better off for it. I get it.
Franklin's been in jail a lot. Like... man. He's good at it. ...Somethin' about this time feels different. The way the cops are acting, the charges, the way it's all being handled, none of it adds up. It could be a hundred things--the guy's got some skeletons--but I don't know what it is and instead of finding out or doing something about it, I'm selling toys to an empty room. Now, maybe Franklin being in jail has something to do with all this, maybe it don't. I dunno. Could be a coincidence."
Kate finally starts to smile. "...But if you believed in coincidences, you wouldn't be a conspiracy theorist."
"You're damn right," Marlow says. "My friend needs my help, and I already turned away from this shit once. I'm a different man now. I'm getting old, I'm not afraid of the truth anymore, and my family's well aware I'm gonna die doing something stupid. God willing."
...Well shit.
"I... guess that about settles it, then," you reply. "...Does anyone want food?"
Kate lifts her head, yelling toward the back of the store. "HEY, EZRA!"
You hear some shuffling in the distance.
The sound of a box falling, a little closer.
And then, Ezra dramatically emerges.
"Yes, my dear?"
Kate gives a nod toward Marlow. "Can he take a break? We gotta talk some business."
"Oh, I don't know," Ezra replies, gesturing toward the rest of the store. "We're just so busy. I supPOSE I could beat back the unending hordes of desperate clientele myself, at least... for a little while."
Marlow nods, and smiles. "Thanks Ezra."
"Oh!," while you're thinking about it, "Ezra! Is the lady in the background of this photo the one you sold those dream rings to?"
You hold up Marlow's photo.
Ezra takes it.
He squints. Tilts his head.
Holds the picture up at a different angle.
"...I don't see any background ladies. It's just a photograph of Mr. Tuck's family."
"Keep looking," Kate says. "We'll be back."
The "Old Fashioned" Burger Joint does, in fact, offer conventional breakfast items on its menu. ...Well, with conventional being relative. It's huge. It's sloppy as hell. It is the food you imagine truck drivers eat. It may in fact be turning you into a truck driver. The sausage alone has probably taken two years off your natural lifespan, and the pancakes--
Jesus, the pancakes.
No one should ever need that much pancake.
It is, once again, quite loud in here. You explain to Marlow the very loosest gist of the situation: that your house hides rooms and produces fucked up nightmares, nightmares custom tailored to you that are consistent, shareable, and operate on their own system of rules. You mostly rush through the bare minimum so he can sort of hopefully follow the conversation you really want to be having:
"Okay," you finally sigh, "so what the fuck happened last night?"
"...We got an error message. Something about a mastermind."
Mastermind...? "A mastermind and their accomplices," you mutter. The Master Mind. God that's silly.
Kate continues. "We didn't wake up in a striped room... and we didn't wake up in the flooded puzzle room. I don't think we were in the castle at all, but fuck if I know. Cici started freaking out about... I don't know, she was rambling about snowglobes, I was too busy freaking out because we were in Hell."
"Hell...?"
Kate leans forward, grabbing a salt shaker and placing it in the center of the table. "So imagine every time you're not staring at this salt shaker, it changes. Like, the metal turns into plastic. Or the salt turns into pepper. Or the whole fucking salt shaker turns into something that wants you to die and I mean right the fuck now. I don't mean when you look away, I mean the second your entire focus isn't on the fucker you can catch it mutating out the corner of your eye.
Every. Fucking. Inch. Every corner and both eyes, like the whole god damn place was... crawling. Doors turned into walls, walls turned into monsters, monsters would just... disappear sometimes. ...Turn into statues and shit."
You have briefly stopped eating to stare at Kate. "Jesus."
"Oh," she says with a bitter, performative grin, "trust me it gets better. So, we flew until we were fucking exhausted, shit's coming out of everywhere, we're trying to watch every direction at once, there is... no fucking rhyme or reason to anything, no structure, just big pillars and chunks of whatever it fucking feels like shooting off into infinity--we find one place, ONE, that SORT of stays the same for five fucking minutes. It was like a... an office... hunting lodge... pirate ship. Like half of one. Anyway, we were like defense and tactics and shit and got overran in minutes. A thing that was mostly shaped like a starfish fucked a schoolbus tried to say my name and then ate me."
...
"It fucking ate you?"
"Took me into its jaws," says Kate, "and tore me apart with its teeth. Yup."
There's a long silence.
Kate fishes a Brainsate out of her jacket and pops it into her mouth.
"I can confirm," she concludes, "that my little puppet body's full of meat. It's full of blood and... little organs. I don't know why it is, I just... now know for a fact that it is. I know if I go back in with you it'll be the normal dungeon and shit'll be fine, but--fuck, man. It--"
She pauses, her gaze having drifted back down to her breakfast.
"...It sucked. Hard. It's like having a panic attack, but instead of feeling like the whole world's attacking you it's actually doing that. Nothing's safe, there's nowhere to run, there's no landmarks, there's no path or goal or... anything. It just... it fucking overloaded us. Your dank-ass church dungeon's a tropical vaykay compared to double accomplicing."
"I gotta ask," Marlow chimes in, "but puppet body...?"
"Everybody takes different forms in the dream," you tell him. "There's... some kind of bullshit personality based tarot gimmick to it, I don't know. Kate's the Devil, she's a half-demon looking doll creature, Cici's the Sun, she's... a bird. ...That kind of looks like the sun I guess. I look like me in the dream since apparently I'm a mastermind, whatever the shit that involves."
"You mostly look like you," Kate adds, "...give or take some proportions."
"You still want in on this?," you ask Marlow.
His face tightens. "Well, now I'm gonna wonder what this thing'd turn me into, so... yeah, I think you're stuck with me."
Fair enough. You turn back to Kate. "What happened to Cici...?"
"I woke her up," Kate says, finally lifting her gaze from the table. "I had to slap her as hard as I could, but I wasn't gonna let her be eaten."
"Is she alright...?"
"Yeah," Kate replies with a short, dry laugh, "I don't hit that hard and Cici's jaw could stop a truck--"
"No, I mean--" You have to pause to regain your composure-- "Mentally, is she doing okay."
"Seemed like it," she says. "She acted more shook about being late for work than she was about... well, all the other shit. It might not've all settled in yet. Or she fucking snapped, I dunno."
I vote we tell Maria what's going on. Franklin obviously knows something, and she's the closest contact we've got. She seems trustworthy enough, and we're kinda in a bad spot. It might be worth taking Marlow when we talk to her, given Marlow knows Franklin. We've handled this pretty well up to now, but I think this demonstrates we need to ask for all the help we can get.
I'd also like to ask Ezra/Marlow for advice on dealing with haunted things, as they have experience.
At very least, we should tell Marlow about the enemies in the dungeon and how stuff (like magic) works.
Also, let Kate know that her well-being comes first, and we'll take the dream stuff until further notice. Also maybe hugs.
Hindsight: we should have tried to give one of them the dream ring.
-1 to telling Maria for now. If push comes to shove, and we get to know more about her, then by all means. But I think we should at least have a day or two of getting to know her, before we try and add her to the Murder Hell Slumber Party
The magician arcana or the temperance arcana. Temperance being because he patiently waited until his family no longer needed him and then got involved. He probably wanted to join back when he was asked long ago
This is.. absolutely fucked. Holy shit, you gotta give Kate at least like, a side-hug or something to comfort her.
Let's not visit the library or call Cici yet. Just text Cici something along the lines of, "Kate explained what the fuck happened last night. Let me know if you're willing to talk about it later". Let her respond on her own terms, just in case, y'know?
Other than that, Let's consider asking Marlow for Franklin's full name, or whatever might be considered a "True Name", just to get two birds with one stone this dream dungeon sesh. Who knows, it could be a real asset, if his supposed knowledge on magic translates over to the Dream Ring.
Although we should also consider what to do if the house is really too far gone to save, since it's functionally indestructible and - last night was really messed up - we still need to hit the library. Ultimately we don't have enough information.
Set a time for Marlow and anyone else who wants to come along tonight. Walk him back to work, see if Ezra found the previous librarian in the photo yet. I still want to tell him thanks, that the ring came in handy and that you promise to continue taking good care of it.
(It sucks not having money, because here I would want to bring something for Cici or the cat.) Make our way over to the library, maybe ask the bus if they know who owns the bait shop. Obviously check on Cici upon arrival.
Has anyone ever considered the error messages themselves? Clearly there are rules and someone or something established a system that attempts to govern them. It's probably worth tucking away for later that there is some aspect of all of this that doesn't depend on Plaire.
after finishing breakfast and reconvening with Erza and doing what ever else we need to do at the Backroom Plaire should probably call and check on Cici.
Yikes - looks like without a "Mastermind", the house has nothing to latch onto to give it form. The fact that Plaire's castle was missing when she wasn't there suggests to me at least that the countdown probably isn't an issue without her participation. The house wasn't there digging through her brain, so it probably wasn't actively doing harm either.
So both of them were somewhere in The Yellow, enjoying the kind of eldritch exposure that makes people go bonkers in minutes.
Maybe the starfish bus saved them by eating her early.
Wait...
Is Cherry in there ? The starfish aspect could come from her networked nature.
Consider asking about her electric sheep experiences next time Plaire rides alone.
So up until now plair was the only one freaking out about the dungeon this bad. Could the dungeons effect of the psyche not directly affect the accomplises as much or at all. Whoever is the accomplice seems almost cool with what happens while in the dungeon
Confirm! System conduit logic, proof by cartridge tilt error (connection pins not all making good/solid contact).
We can read more heavily into the manual by reading details about the tarot zodiac details online. Early NES and earlier games had half or more of the game in the manual, so this is a case of knowledge is power, literally.
I realize some of you might not get my logic error line, but have you ever run a game emulation with the master file missing, you know, the one that puts the assets in order? Under force run conditions, this is what you get... this or a full system crash taking 3-30 times the required ram with it. (Your pc can kill the crashed emulation if it still has ram enough to call up the task manager or whatever you use.) You'll find more reference to my comparison of magic to code, physical and digital/energy/focus in my post on the previous page.
Look, I'm going to attempt to interpret you here. First off, if I'm reading you right, your recommended action is to Research more tarot. Your basis for this recommendation is how in-universe tarot lore is analogous to a game manual for the dream.
Aside from that, you make a big deal about how magic is like computer programming. If the process is designed poorly, or its inputs are improper, it won't work. Inversely, if the process is designed well and the inputs are proper, it will work.
Hopefully I've distilled this properly. Please try to speak less like a ranting, incoherent conspiracy theorist in the future; this is a pain.
As for your recommendation to research more tarot, I find it dubious that it will have any benefit. It's kind of valuable to have in-comic, so we're following Player's journey of understanding, but it's not "the game manual."
The first thing in a game manual should be, how to start the game without errors. Do you think that tarot research is ever going to provide those instructions? At best, tarot is a portion of the manual. Specifically, the "Characters" pages, and even then, it's highly abstract, since the game has to handle countless potential instantiations.
As for the resemblance between magic and coding: Sure, they're similar. But it's not that one imitates the other. It's because they are both instances of human problem-solving. Formulate a process to solve a problem, then use resources to enact it. Good process + good resources = problem solved. Bad process or bad resources = problem remains, or possibly gets worse.
Let's take an example. Suppose you want chicken soup. That's the problem you want to solve. You need a process and resources.
Suppose your process starts with lighting your hair on fire. That's a bad process for this task, and it won't solve your lack-of-chicken-soup problem.
Or suppose that your resources are pine cones and semi-gloss paint. Those are bad resources for this task, and they won't solve your lack-of-chicken-soup problem.
Process and resources. It's the same for mundane tasks, as it is for magic and technology. You speak about the similarity between magic and tech as if it is a revolutionary insight, but the particular points you cite strike me as rather elementary.
Pinecones and paint could be leveraged into chicken soup, but the process would likely be anything but linear.
Example:
make art, trade for soup.
Get hired paint on someone else's property for cash to go purchase ingreadients to make soup
Crush pinecones to get the seeds so they can be used as chicken feed to lure in wild chickens to catch, butcher, and make soup.
Non-linear progression to soup, sorta like trading a toaster into a car on Craigslist...
Not that I'm going to bash on you for calling me a "ranting, incoherent conspiracy theorist" as I have a hard time speaking my mind to others in general, but I am going to say this. Yes: you're right, if we're trying for a simplified explanation (a for dummies book). No: you've missed the mark, but not by far.
To explain the latter (No) response, the game manuals I'm referring to tended to include maps, spell guides, item descriptions, and a considerable amount of backstory that you would need to know to understand what the hell was going on on screen. Old games only had so much ROM, and the handbook actually stored more than that in print, just not in an interactive format. As for spell craft being code... there is a reason people who dig way to far into this put patterns to the spells they try to write out. Likewise, you can find a story about the guy who created the first line art graphics in combination with a whole number randomizer, just cause he wanted to literally roll a D20 die on screen for his D&D guys, this event predates color monitors or pixel art and while slow, generated the desired effect using mathematical graphing software as the computer understood it and could roll any single die out of the standard set. His colleges referred to this as "fucking magic" as they had no idea how binary could do that, it didn't make sense at the time.
To quote one of my fathers favorite lines, "magic is just the science we haven't figured out yet."
So, in summary: yeah, you cleaned up what I said nicely, and I do appreciate that, truly, I just think you brushed it off before trying to understand it.
Still doesn't explain things like the tradesmen, but it should wrap up earthling magic rather nicely. Morgen included a lot more then one plain of reality.... that complicates things further than binary can explain..... or anything I can wrap my head around. But I did say I'd offer what I had; and I suppose that includes admitting when you know for a fact there are holes the size of mountains in it. I don't thing Morgen would keep writing if any of us actually broke his code.
...and no, I don't expect the tarot to include the entire manual... just clues. Some tarot cards relate to others in unique ways and the manual for the cards themselves may be a hint on multiplayer experience for example. The dungeon itself may also give clues as to where else to look for more clues on instructions. It called Plaire (Player) the mastermind after calling her the fool. I recall an age old DOS game by that same name that might be worth looking up, but that might also be digging at pebbles in the sand (to much of a stretch to be accurate).
37212513, let me start this by backing up and saying sorry for being so caustic before. I assessed that you were trying to engage with us here, and that the abstract communication style you used was not engaging the members of the community. It was with the intention of engaging back with you and encouraging you to communicate more clearly, that I wrote all that.
After a night's rest, I realized that conspiracy theorist simile was too colorfully negative, and—contrary to my stated intent—might have turned you off from engaging with us any further.
You mention your difficulties in speaking your mind; I, too, have communication problems, of a different sort. Sorry about that.
Your clarification that the manual could hold more value than I assessed has merit. Maps, spell guides, and item descriptions might not be forthcoming from the tarot, but a better grasp of the backstory can indeed give a better perspective on the situation, and result in better decisions.
Your father's line is quite similar to Clarke's third law... but I rather doubt that magic in-setting will ever be anything but magic. To turn this magic into science would require science-like explanations: laws of physics, chemistry, biology, etc., that explain how magic works in connection with the more mundane laws we know.
That's not easy, for the supernatural events in the story so far. It would be even harder to integrate the fantastic phenomena of Blood Is Mine (link), which you may know shares this fictional setting.
I think everything will be fine if we just say, "It's magic," and roll with it.
I do appreciate the reconsideration, and I recognize that glossing over things is quite common when we're just trying to enjoy a story. I was under the impression that the discussions section here was for either A: suggesting actions for the story to move forward or B: discussing ideas and concepts based on anything we could find, be it a vague loose thread or a piece of mythology we where reminded of, or anything else we thought helpful. I reserve posting until I think I have something to actually say worth making a difference, so I figured this might hold some weight. I even tried to amend my concept by marking the Tradesmen and the like, as you said, a clear reference to blood is mine, as something my concept wouldn't effect or explain. I've spent a few hours each day the past few days looking through my old game notes for clues, magic notes I've written out over the past couple decades (please don't press that one for details), and even some of my code lessons for better ways to explain myself, as well as the occasional internet search for anything that comes to mind..... For what I understand, and the loose tie it "might" have on more "old earth" based magics in the comic, this is the best explanation I can really put together. Admittedly, the alien and extra-dimensional stuff puts a wrench in everything I understand.
Am I the only person who noticed the kitty cat? Adopt the kitty! Get it! GET THE KITTY!
...Uh, because a pet will make the house seem more like a home. That's totally it.
KIIIIIITTTTTYYYYY
(If we adopt an animal and name it, does that make it eligible for Dream Dungeon shenanigans? Probably not a hot idea unless everyone else is out of commission for any reason).
Cats sleep 15-20 hours a day. Imagine the effects of entering the spooky house's nightmare so often on that poor creature's psyche! Especially now that we know it's extra-traumatic for those that sleep there without Plaire!
I do wonder how an animal would react to being in the proximity of the house. Just see if they freak out or not, it might be a good indication that some otherness can be observed in some way.
Wait, what? Kitty? *looks*
*gasp!*
KIIIIIIIIIIIIITTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!! :D
I want to hug it and pet it and love it and squeeze it and name it Geooorge~! :D
I just caught up and I have some Thoughts but I'm not sure I have a suggestion for the next page.
I do think we should talk to Mayor Parsons tonight. I'm almost certain at this point that what she wants from the house is her sister. I also think she would be a good ally to have and honestly she deserves to be in on this.
(We should definitely still attempt to verify that in our conversation - I think the quickest way to do so is to just "casually" call her Nat but that involves another assumption & could therefore give a false negative, so we might want a plan B)
ok i reread the whole thing, because i am slightly insane,
and while a couple of the intermediate logic steps have changed, I'm more sure than ever of the conclusion: Rill Parsons has some relation to the Old Librarian, who is currently trapped in the alcazar, and that's why she's so interested in the house.
Even if that's wrong, I'm quite sure that name dropping Nat to her will help us find out what her deal is, so we should do that today.
Also, unrelated but we should acquire Somniplan at our earliest opportunity (ideally, tomorrow) so we don't have to sleep somewhere else to not enter the alcazar, cause no way is THAT helping our house feel like a house. So we should probably give Lagi a ring today, too.
a.) It might be another couple weeks until update happens. I know that's not a long time when you look at the history of me and hiatuses, but I am a big pissy baby about this one because the last couple of weeks have been complete ass and I was on a roll
b.) I will either be making a huge effortpost or a straight up video about my situation in the next... eh, give it a month or so. I'm fine and MDA's fine, but mental health is a fucking monster and I feel like shit for my long disappearances, and for relying on Patreon for income while not having a whole hell of a lot to offer on Patreon. Things are moving, and I am getting answers; the last couple of weeks have been eye opening and with any luck, the next couple of weeks are going to fix a metric shit ton of my longer running problems.
c.) I have made an anonymous poll to get peoples' thoughts on MDA so far. I made it anonymous because I want people to be honest--don't try to spare my feelings, don't try to sugarcoat it. If something sucks I need to change it or it's going to keep sucking. If I don't get feedback I'm left to be my own critic and that's not been working out too great. https://s.surveyplanet.com/xXib2mRNe
Wellp, I appear to have caught up. Bit frustrating, I friggin' DEVOURED this.
That said, yeh, mental health can be a sumbitch and a half. Take care of yourself Morgenstern. I want more, all the way to the end. If I've gotta wait to get it with you intact when everything is done, so be it.
"I'd say..." he takes a moment to mull it over. "'Bout seven years ago?"
"...So the ex-librarian would be coming up on her late twenties, early thirties," you mutter. You take a picture of the photograph; your phone's not great to begin with, so the already poor image quality is even worse in digital picture-of-a-picture form.
You had hoped further decontextualizing the image from the original photo would make the former librarian easier to notice, but that does not appear to be the case. Still, she's clear enough if one actively looks for her--clear enough that you could show the picture to others if need be.
There's a brief pause; Kate slowly looks to you... and eventually speaks up. "You're going back in tonight... aren't you?"
You start to think about it... but there's not really much to think about. "I have to check on the countdown," you tell her. "I probably need to stop the countdown but I'm still figuring that part out."
Kate nods.
Hesitates.
"I'm uh..."
Jesus Christ is she hesitating.
"I... I'm pretty sure it's my turn, but I'm taking the night off. I'll still help with the house and shit, but like--" You're not used to seeing her this... reserved. She finally forces it out. "--I don't know man, last night fucking sucked."
You're... genuinely taken aback. "What the fuck happened...?"
"It didn't..." She takes a breath. "It didn't put us in the dungeon. It put us somewhere else. Look, I think we should let Marlow in on all this. He's the most anti-establishment motherfucker I know, the dream should be normal if you're there, and I don't know if Cici made it out of last night any better than I did. You need to take somebody, and we can train Marlow."
You stare at Kate for a moment, struggling for what to say. "Kate, I--"
"You need to take somebody," she repeats. "Don't go in there alone."
You slowly turn to Marlow, who has fallen quiet but is hiding his confusion well.
Your first instinct is that you should consult Cici.
...But you quickly realize it'd be a pointless gesture, as you don't really have much of a choice.
What you're doing is dangerous--the entire situation is, in a variety of ways. If Kate's right and Cici doesn't feel up to it tonight, you have no alternate accomplices. You also agree with Kate: going in alone is too risky, and that's probably true even without her knowledge of whatever happened last night.
Further, if Cici claims to feel up to it but you don't offer any alternative (aside from calling the whole thing off, also too risky when there's a literal countdown involved), then you're not going to be convinced that she isn't just giving into the pressure and forcing herself into the dungeon against her own will. If you have other options, she can be open and honest about what she wants to do, versus what she feels like she has to do.
You could get Cici's opinions on other alternative accomplices, but the longer you wait the less time the involved party has to think the issue over. Ambushing someone with your nightmare dungeon and only minutes to mull it over would be a dick move; every second you spend even thinking about this is a second that Marlow can't be weighing the risk with all the information needed.
If you want to dungeon tonight at all, you kind of need to drop the bomb on him ASAP.
It's been like five whole seconds of total silence. You're pretty sure it's your turn to talk. "Marlow, we... we know shit there's crimes against knowing.
I think. I'm pretty sure.
We're doing dangerous shit. It's... it's probably fucking us up mentally, it's so illegal we're still trying to figure out how illegal it is, and at least one person has exploded. Franklin might be in jail for something adjacent to what we're doing. We don't know. That... it's the whole problem, we don't know. Our whole fucking world's getting flipped upside down one day after another. What I know about myself and what shit is and how things work is like, a different dimension entirely from what it all was a week ago and it just. Keeps. Fucking. Going.
We have learned... so god damn much, and we still don't have the slightest fucking clue what we're getting into.
I don't even know what it IS. It's a house but it's becoming more than a house but it was never just a house, it was getting used as some kind of fucked up nightmare door to The Trauma Zone if that's not a NEW feature. We might be losing our minds. Every paradigm is shifting without a clutch and I don't know who I am anymore.
Jesus Christ, Marlow, you have kids.
I don't know how I could have even started to fucking ask you to jump into this god damn hole with us. I am so sorry."
Nailed it.
Kate looks stunned.
Marlow...
Marlow smiles. Just a faint... mirthful smile, perhaps the first time you've ever seen one not attached to a portrait of Santa Claus.
He says,
quite simply,
"Things... man was not meant to know."
Marlow continues.
"That's what Franklin called it.
He said the real truth, the... the biggest truth...
he said the truth is a light that never warms.
Gave me a... a big speech, like you just did. He told me everything the truth had taken from him, all the damage it'd caused, how it brought nothing but misery to know and only helped him realize how... how insignificant he was. He made the point that I can't unlearn something--it's permanent. You learn something, it's there forever. Real fancy speech and I'm not doing it justice. I'll grant ya, yours was pretty good too."
He pauses. Sniffs.
"...And hell, I bought it. He knew some shit I didn't about the shit I didn't know, so I walked away. I trusted him, and I let it go. Franklin knows something big, he assures me it doesn't help and it just messes you up, and I go on livin' my life. I didn't figure I needed to know everything. I don't know how to make my own beer or drive a tank, and we're all better off for it. I get it.
Franklin's been in jail a lot. Like... man. He's good at it. ...Somethin' about this time feels different. The way the cops are acting, the charges, the way it's all being handled, none of it adds up. It could be a hundred things--the guy's got some skeletons--but I don't know what it is and instead of finding out or doing something about it, I'm selling toys to an empty room. Now, maybe Franklin being in jail has something to do with all this, maybe it don't. I dunno. Could be a coincidence."
Kate finally starts to smile. "...But if you believed in coincidences, you wouldn't be a conspiracy theorist."
"You're damn right," Marlow says. "My friend needs my help, and I already turned away from this shit once. I'm a different man now. I'm getting old, I'm not afraid of the truth anymore, and my family's well aware I'm gonna die doing something stupid. God willing."
...Well shit.
"I... guess that about settles it, then," you reply. "...Does anyone want food?"
Kate lifts her head, yelling toward the back of the store. "HEY, EZRA!"
You hear some shuffling in the distance.
The sound of a box falling, a little closer.
And then, Ezra dramatically emerges.
"Yes, my dear?"
Kate gives a nod toward Marlow. "Can he take a break? We gotta talk some business."
"Oh, I don't know," Ezra replies, gesturing toward the rest of the store. "We're just so busy. I supPOSE I could beat back the unending hordes of desperate clientele myself, at least... for a little while."
Marlow nods, and smiles. "Thanks Ezra."
"Oh!," while you're thinking about it, "Ezra! Is the lady in the background of this photo the one you sold those dream rings to?"
You hold up Marlow's photo.
Ezra takes it.
He squints. Tilts his head.
Holds the picture up at a different angle.
"...I don't see any background ladies. It's just a photograph of Mr. Tuck's family."
"Keep looking," Kate says. "We'll be back."
The "Old Fashioned" Burger Joint does, in fact, offer conventional breakfast items on its menu. ...Well, with conventional being relative. It's huge. It's sloppy as hell. It is the food you imagine truck drivers eat. It may in fact be turning you into a truck driver. The sausage alone has probably taken two years off your natural lifespan, and the pancakes--
Jesus, the pancakes.
No one should ever need that much pancake.
It is, once again, quite loud in here. You explain to Marlow the very loosest gist of the situation: that your house hides rooms and produces fucked up nightmares, nightmares custom tailored to you that are consistent, shareable, and operate on their own system of rules. You mostly rush through the bare minimum so he can sort of hopefully follow the conversation you really want to be having:
"Okay," you finally sigh, "so what the fuck happened last night?"
"...We got an error message. Something about a mastermind."
Mastermind...? "A mastermind and their accomplices," you mutter. The Master Mind. God that's silly.
Kate continues. "We didn't wake up in a striped room... and we didn't wake up in the flooded puzzle room. I don't think we were in the castle at all, but fuck if I know. Cici started freaking out about... I don't know, she was rambling about snowglobes, I was too busy freaking out because we were in Hell."
"Hell...?"
Kate leans forward, grabbing a salt shaker and placing it in the center of the table. "So imagine every time you're not staring at this salt shaker, it changes. Like, the metal turns into plastic. Or the salt turns into pepper. Or the whole fucking salt shaker turns into something that wants you to die and I mean right the fuck now. I don't mean when you look away, I mean the second your entire focus isn't on the fucker you can catch it mutating out the corner of your eye.
Every. Fucking. Inch. Every corner and both eyes, like the whole god damn place was... crawling. Doors turned into walls, walls turned into monsters, monsters would just... disappear sometimes. ...Turn into statues and shit."
You have briefly stopped eating to stare at Kate. "Jesus."
"Oh," she says with a bitter, performative grin, "trust me it gets better. So, we flew until we were fucking exhausted, shit's coming out of everywhere, we're trying to watch every direction at once, there is... no fucking rhyme or reason to anything, no structure, just big pillars and chunks of whatever it fucking feels like shooting off into infinity--we find one place, ONE, that SORT of stays the same for five fucking minutes. It was like a... an office... hunting lodge... pirate ship. Like half of one. Anyway, we were like defense and tactics and shit and got overran in minutes. A thing that was mostly shaped like a starfish fucked a schoolbus tried to say my name and then ate me."
...
"It fucking ate you?"
"Took me into its jaws," says Kate, "and tore me apart with its teeth. Yup."
There's a long silence.
Kate fishes a Brainsate out of her jacket and pops it into her mouth.
"I can confirm," she concludes, "that my little puppet body's full of meat. It's full of blood and... little organs. I don't know why it is, I just... now know for a fact that it is. I know if I go back in with you it'll be the normal dungeon and shit'll be fine, but--fuck, man. It--"
She pauses, her gaze having drifted back down to her breakfast.
"...It sucked. Hard. It's like having a panic attack, but instead of feeling like the whole world's attacking you it's actually doing that. Nothing's safe, there's nowhere to run, there's no landmarks, there's no path or goal or... anything. It just... it fucking overloaded us. Your dank-ass church dungeon's a tropical vaykay compared to double accomplicing."
"I gotta ask," Marlow chimes in, "but puppet body...?"
"Everybody takes different forms in the dream," you tell him. "There's... some kind of bullshit personality based tarot gimmick to it, I don't know. Kate's the Devil, she's a half-demon looking doll creature, Cici's the Sun, she's... a bird. ...That kind of looks like the sun I guess. I look like me in the dream since apparently I'm a mastermind, whatever the shit that involves."
"You mostly look like you," Kate adds, "...give or take some proportions."
"You still want in on this?," you ask Marlow.
His face tightens. "Well, now I'm gonna wonder what this thing'd turn me into, so... yeah, I think you're stuck with me."
Fair enough. You turn back to Kate. "What happened to Cici...?"
"I woke her up," Kate says, finally lifting her gaze from the table. "I had to slap her as hard as I could, but I wasn't gonna let her be eaten."
"Is she alright...?"
"Yeah," Kate replies with a short, dry laugh, "I don't hit that hard and Cici's jaw could stop a truck--"
"No, I mean--" You have to pause to regain your composure-- "Mentally, is she doing okay."
"Seemed like it," she says. "She acted more shook about being late for work than she was about... well, all the other shit. It might not've all settled in yet. Or she fucking snapped, I dunno."