[1] overview
[2] new players and characters
[3] plotline // network // mer
[4] plotline // network // closed circle // blue team
[5] plotline // network // closed circle // red team
[6] plotline // project bitscorch
[7] plotline // other
[8] closing words



[1] overview

As usual, I start this newsletter by pointing out the delay, namely that the last newsletter was one a half months ago, and then Mer ended and I had bronchitis (and the two may be related) and I haven't had much of a desire to summarise anything, coupled with a bout of chronic laziness the past two weeks.

At this point you nod patiently and point out that newsletters have almost never been on time and you've given up on waiting for regular ones and it's okay.

And then I stop wasting your time.



[2] new players and characters

Lycandria is a new sign-up and old friend of Morgrim's and pinkgothic's from another community, but currently still needs to be dragged to #dataclaw by her hair. Whether something will come of it or not still needs to be established...

MCSN is another new player. Some of you may already know her from the various times she's popped into #dataclaw just to randomly hang out; this time, she created herself a character that Jim was so kind to introduce to Closed Circle's Blue Team: Shrisa Hawthorne a/k/a soul_flame.

mahar, another #dataclaw regular of a sort, finally got around to creating a character for Wildcard as repeatedly announced, Marlie Gabriella Lords a/k/a brie, that still needs some polishing and by proxy has yet to be introduced.

Meanwhile, in 'veteran players' land, Serice created James Deros a/k/a Kerras, a character that has yet to be introduced, but probably will be around January, when the player presumes he'll have stable internet once more.

Also, Jim created Jennifer Hale a/k/a Jess, who's been dumped into Closed Circle's Red Team and is holding up reasonably there.



[3] plotline // network // mer

tl;dr up front: Mer ended. Badly.

Corinthian's attempts to salvage some of his honour by sharing the shred of information he'd gleaned prior to his capture with Sawdust didn't go so well for him [#323]. Either way, though, with the information with his Puppet ally, the game changed to one wherein Corinthian 'only' needed to free the Pandawan and let him return to Banjamar - excepting the matter of the captive's wrecked wings making it a bit difficult.

By proxy, Corinthian waited for the Nado cultists to reach Banjamar to collect their second to last Treasure and open 'negotiations' with the Citizens (generously offering to trade Sawdust and Corinthian for the Treasure) on the island fortress before working to undo Sawdust's entrapment.

Back on the island, however, the Citizens, hearing of the failed spying from the Nado cultists, made a mistake - or rather, Mandalore in his infinite wisdom and brawn did, panicking in light of being backed into a proverbial wall, and goaded (unbeknownst to the others) by Leonard. Mandalore took the Treasure of the Citizens, allied with Adrian, took a small boat, and hoped to outrun the cultists and find a new place to hide with the Treasure. Jochen, trying to dissuade him from the plan, also ended up aboard.

Once the cultists caught on to what was happening, in part due to seeing the vessel leave, in other part due to the Compass changing its bearing, they decided to uphold their part of the bargain, certain they could get the Treasure now, and interrupted Corinthian's attempts to save Sawdust by freeing the monkey-bird and... throwing him overboard, giving him the option to swim to the nearby Banjamar [#324].

This way, the information about the last Treasure at Atanon reached the Citizens - Sawdust was fished out of the ocean to avoid getting crushed to death by the Banjamarian perimeter - and they decided to use the time Mandalore's otherwise rather dismal plan was buying them to try and find that Treasure without the Compass. Some Banjamarians insist on coming along, at this point openly sceptical of the group's ability to get things done.

On the way, the vibrancy of the Puppets and the network in general found itself discussed, to some grim conclusions, such as an inability to draw the line between Citizens and Puppets, and the horrific potential of all of them being used as templates for Puppet design [#325].

Meanwhile, the inevitable happened: Mandalore, Adrian and Jochen were intercepted, their Treasure seized, and the three of them captured alive at Ezadir's instruction. While the Citizens heading for Banjamar knew of Corinthian's betrayal through Sawdust, these three Citizens had no idea, though - and by proxy, seeing Corinthian alive and reasonably well still came as a surprise (to Jochen at least). Confused, he tried to question Corinthian to understand his motives, but failed at comprehending the (at the time due to supervision by Enit even spottier communicated) train of thought that ultimately caused the chain of events [#326]. It prompted Corinthian to seek him out again, causing things between them to smooth out, but the conversation ended in the mundane realisation that Jochen was simply terrified out of his mind. In response, Corinthian promised to protect him [#327].

He failed. Trying to escape with Adrian and Jochen (and vowing to return for Mandalore, but scared the dimwit would ruin the chance of any of them to escape at the time), he fell into a trap set by Ezadir, a skin-contact toxin Corinthian and Sawdust had brought with themselves worked in the ropes of their escape vessel, paralysing all three would-be-escapees. Predictably, it doesn't end well for them [#329].

The rest of the Citizens reached Atanon. With Azur and the Banjamarians pushing for a cautious approach of the people, Joukahainen, Azur and the Banjamarian Zil found themselves ferried into the island by Gunther [#328]. A tense few moments and discussions notwithstanding, given their story, the Atani ultimately welcomed them and let them through to the Second Gate. With their Treasure-hunting party consisting of Adrethyrian, Hakumele, Israel, Azur and one of the Atani, they descended. A few hours into their quest, Adrethyrian got himself caught dangerously in a pool of Dark Water - while immune to its directly lethal effects, he was quite capable of being captured by it, after all - and made Azur reveal his nature as a dark ecomancer to save him from it, prompting their Atani guide to view him with resentment and suspicion for the rest of the trip [#330].

The Nado cultists meanwhile arrived at Atanon. While the Atani tried to stall them for a while, they had no real grounds to refuse them their request to pass through Atanon and to the Second Gate. Fueled in part by a faith that the Treasures combined would dispel the Dark Water regardless who wielded them, Ezadir and two of his 'minions' were accompanied by a few guards to the Second Gate, intending to both assure that he wouldn't start anything violent, as well as ensure the two groups would not battle each other on Atani ground. At this point in time, Joukahainen and Frederick 'guarded' the Second Gate, and given the enforced ceasefire, Joukahainen opted to use his skill as a diplomat to try and talk Ezadir out of his quest. At first also aiming to stall, after some discussion, Joukahainen compromises and follows them down through the Second Gate to continue their conversation [#331, #345]. Unfortunately, nothing comes of it.

Instead, Ezadir, armed with the Compass, found the Treasure before the Citizens' team, not even crossing paths with them, and left Atanon - something that was tragic enough in and of itself. However, in the meantime, Erika had declared a vested interest in saving Adrian and Jochen (neither of which she knew were dead) as well as Mandalore from the Nado vessel, Sirena arguing much the same, and Sable accompanied them to offer a less squishy avatar in case despite all intended stealth they were discovered.

They were. With Mandalore tied to a mast, they were able to free him near the start of their excursion, but while rummaging through the interior of the docked ship, they roused the cultists on it, and were subsequently captured, with Sable and Erika put out of their misery not much later for having killed cultists in their attempt to fend them off, as well as for simply being threatening even by avatar design alone.

Once Azur resurfaced from the Second Gate, empty-handed and aching from the trip, the last thing he wanted to hear, of course, was that Sirena was on the Nado cultists' ship, heading back to Nado as it was. Frantic for more than one reason, he pushed the others to pursue the enemy vessel - they still had Adrethyrian, they could still tank through Nado, couldn't they?

Unfortunately, Rhea had brought with her more than just the Citizens' Treasure, and with the knowledge that Frederick held a gem that could control Adrethyrian's life and death, the attack on Nado was cut short, the threat to the sunstone enough to force Adrethyrian into calmer mannerisms.

While Samanya considered the options of saving the Citizens from their now so inevitable doom, Rasim found himself made a squishy-body example of to a forced-to-be-watching Azur and Sirena by being sacrificed 'to' the Dark Water (although presumably just a victim of Ezadir's awful theatrics). With the Compass thereafter mockingly shattered, however, something changed: The Treasures adopted a disconcerting, pulsing glow that caught the cultists' attention. Where it had been impossible to destroy the Treasures before, they were now susceptible to damage, and the one Ezadir was once more wearing around his neck was brought to shatter.

With the quest by definition unwinnable at this point, the sim decided to grant reign to the Dark Water as directly as possible, letting the substance surge up and poison the oceans entirely. With the remaining Citizens freed by Samanya and Azur having whisked Sirena from the most immediate threat of death by Dark Water, refuge was sought on the roof of the Nado citadel, where a glum hour was spent coming to terms with mortality [#332].

Fortunately, no one else died, the sim instead literally and awkwardly halting and spilling the Citizens into Closed Circle.



[4] plotline // network // closed circle // blue team

The shell-shocked Citizens of Blue Team arrived in Closed Circle, presenting the butler with the confusing sight of both Joukahainen and Sirena breaking down, having lost someone they cared for (Azur), and former outright feeling crushed by the responsibility of another world lost [#333].

Nonetheless, they were given their quest on a silver platter. They were declared guests to 'Lady Dana' and the sim proved itself distinctly aware of the Puppet/Citizen dichotomy by making their quest a "murder mystery with no murder", specifically to find out which one of them had been replaced with a Puppet, along with the insurance that said person was being well-cared for away from the group.

Of course, as the titles of the sections suggest, the truth was stranger than that: Half of the team each had been replaced, making for an awkward time trying to guess which of the characters was behaving the most strange, seeing as there seemed to be plenty viable candidates for the position of bodysnatched.

Perhaps the best candidate - despite being a Puppet rather than a Citizen to begin with - turned out to be Adrethyrian, who after initial raw confusion on his part turned violent, and was only with effort caught and locked into a room by himself. With there now being concern for the other autonomous Puppets, Leonard, too, was locked away for the safety of the others (something he ought to by now be used to), but Joukahainen was allowed to stay free, as he'd never exhibited directly aggressive behaviour.

Sirena on the other hand definitely behaved as expected, the grief over losing touch with yet another thing she loved wrecking her spirit. Trying to prove a point to herself, she partly dismantled the books in the library, a state that Elizabeth found her in and tried to help her out of to no avail [#346].

Regardless, the first real thing done by anyone was to abuse the sim as a means to recover from the arduous last days of Mer. During this time, Dunestrider tried to coax information out of Gunther as to his offline self, but unfortunately didn't get anywhere [#341]. Nonetheless, they did bond as friends, and they're together once more when Shrisa found herself freshly trapped on the network [#342].

It was Dread who ultimately alerted the Citizens to the fact that there were two groups, appearing one night to Elizabeth to offer to help them cheat more or less 'because the server is also cheating', which came as an unnerving surprise to her [interlude: Ticket]. A night later, she let Dread knit her and Frederick, separated by Teams, together - but rather than be able to focus on the sim-specific topics, the conversation went awry, her attempts to soothe him from his terror at being in a Dread-dream with her (assuring Dread was there to be helpful for once, that he hasn't hurt her, and so forth) prompting questions Frederick didn't truly want to hear the answer to. As he was granted insight into Elizabeth's friendship with the psychic despite all hope on the contrary, he blew a fuse and attacked her blindly, making Dread intervene by aborting the shared dream for her and leaving her to panic on her lonesome [interlude: Intervention]. With Elizabeth hiding from the entirely intangible threat in the garden, it was Samanya who found her, and the human contact helped slowly anchor Liz back to reality [#343].

The information that they're made up of two distinct groups was passed on to Sethiss as soon as Elizabeth could muster - effectively immediately after it became clear sleep wasn't going to be had despite exhaustion [#352] - and has steadily spread since.

In the meanwhile, Samanya's willingly leant shoulder to Elizabeth, however, hadn't acknowledged Dread as much other than something surely exaggerated by the disheveled girl - prompting the psychic to correct the false impression [#347]. While making an effort not to let it get to her, a then-calm Elizabeth picked up on it a day later regardless, and discussed the psychic with the confused bipedal reptilian [#351].

With Adrethyrian still locked up by himself, Joukahainen came across Paul while checking on the imprisoned Eclipsed Puppet, and a discussion about Puppet philosophy ended with Joukahainen's already dodgy faith in the Citizens tarnished, given Paul's almost clinical take on the matter [#344].

It was around this time that Jaenelle's copy ends up in the sim, much to Sirena's chagrin - she recognised the Puppet only as her sister's 'sexbot' and had an accordingly intense loathing of being bemothered by it in any way. The encounter upset her enough for her to waltz off toward the forest to cry on her lonesome, something that Gunther sabotaged by coming along - and surprising her with his alter ego, Alex, the real him, coming out to speak to her in a fatherly fashion, and convincing her to not only adopt a more positive outlook, but to involve herself in the sim quest, too.

Joukahainen, meanwhile, found himself rather enamoured with Jaenelle, being an autonomous Puppet with self-confidence as she was, and conversations about the status of Puppets in the rest of the internet were had [#350]. Even Sirena, in part motivated by some introspection [interlude: Bathtime Exploration], eventually warmed up to her once she realised that she was honestly there to help and had far more character depth than she remembered her having [#354].



[5] plotline // network // closed circle // red team

The Red Team's introduction to Closed Circle was less dramatic, but they were given the same quest (see second paragraph in 'Blue Team' section). While Blue Team had the works of Sirena's depression, Red Team instead only (but firmly) assumed there would have to be something of the sort, and when the Puppet version of Sirena locked herself into the library, Frederick and his sidekick Puppet-Elizabeth tried to 'save' her, with the Citizen a bit perplexed by the resulting conversation [#334].

Leonard, not replaced in this part of Closed Circle, armed with the (comparative) cunning he'd taught himself throughout Mer and the desire to sabotage the Citizens' lives as much as he could and take a silent, unvoiced enjoyment in their suffering, found himself exploring the truer natures of his fellow travellers, beginning with one he found most intimating: Frederick. The resulting conversation was short, seeing as Frederick's resentment for the Puppet was certainly not diminished and he took some joy in driving Leonard off with the truth of the Eclipsed and Dominion quasi-genocides [#335].

The sim quest itself, however, was not approached in this Team, either, and much loafing about was had instead.

Replacement-Joukahainen, trying to goad the Citizens into actually doing as they were told rather than leech off the hospitality of the sim world, sought out Frederick to prompt him into figuring out for himself what the difference between Puppets and Citizens even were. Instead, he was unexpected granted a surprisingly simple insight on personhood from the dichotomy-agnostic Citizen: When prompted to explain what the difference between a Puppet like Joukahainen (a person to Frederick's perception) and a Puppet like Dark Water (not a person to Frederick's perception) was, Frederick cited Joukahainen's ability to empathise with others [#337].

The Red Team, too, ended up with a fresh member to their crew. However, rather than being a Puppet replacement of Shrisa, the newcomer, Jess, and her arrival was entirely unrelated. As a bonus, Jess seemed reasonably collected about her entrapment [#340].

On a final note, since about the 20th of September, once finally sufficiently calmed down, Frederick started to share the information that there were two teams to the sim's quest with the others - it can thus be safely assumed to be common knowledge by now, as with the Blue Team.



[6] plotline // project bitscorch

Back in the real world, Project Bitscorch ended up on Newshound's radar: With Newshound's pet project involving net safety following the interview with Chad Butler, he'd sought out related topics and stumbled across Bitscorch by proxy. Justin Greyhound agreed to a meeting (to which both Newshound and his new makeshift supervisor Marcus showed up), and described the Wildcard network from an outside perspective, explaining the Project's goals, their theories and attempts at proving or disproving them, and their social intentions. The case of Sirena Blades ended up mentioned, and Justin and Marcus found themselves with rather unexpected common ground [#336].

The end of Mer and the related deaths, of course, did not pass by unnoticed, and a geographical coincidence struck fear into Justin as he analysed the data [interlude: The Power of Coincidence]. He brought it up with Newshound, also for an outside opinion, though nothing came of it [#338]. That didn't stop Newshound from continually trying to spy patterns with his newly acquired sidekicks Jaenelle and Marcus [#348] - even if his methodology was amusing to them. Eventually, the topic of Sirena was broached anew, Newshound informing his friends that she's still alive according to his records, which shocked Marcus and Jaenelle. They decided not to tell Jennifer about it (at least not anywhere near immediately) and instead to see if they could infiltrate the network somehow, or rather, if Jaenelle could [#349].

She managed to strike up a deal with Verdana while Marcus was offline that let her send a copy of herself into the network as a long-term probe that, while it was permitted to exit at will, wouldn't be let back in once it did, making it hard to predict when it might resurface.

Across of this, however, Marcus, thanks to Chad Butler's focus, was of the impression that the Wildcard entrapments chiefly happened to people with pod connectors. Fortunately, when he next talked to Justin Greyhound to let him know that Jaenelle was in the network, the misconception was finally fixed [#353].



[7] plotline // other

In DemonWorks, aside from business as usual (whatever that means these days), Jennifer and Marcus decided to send Jaenelle into 'Crimson', her genAesis pet project gone awry, to investigate anomalous data. It turned out that the space allocated for Crimson's purposes had run out entirely, causing his program to almost short out since his entire design as a genAesis seed was to grow and learn, something that had him understandably disgruntled. He asked/ordered Jaenelle to tell Jennifer to fix his state after growing to trust Jaenelle marginally, and as the autonomous Puppet resurfaced, her desire to speak for Crimson was for a moment outright misconstrued as him having tampered with her, until she managed to convince the Citizens of otherwise [#339].



[8] closing words

I'm reminded why I once decided a two-week rhythm for newsletters would be a good idea - it tends to result in less walls of text and less being crushed by the amount of plot. But I never learn.

Also:

Happy German Unity Day!

Not that any of you care. <3