[1] overview
[2] new players and characters
[3] plotline // pandiamonium
[4] plotline // camp tumbling milestone
[5] plotline // other



[1] overview

We've tumbled into Psychosim now! That means that for the next few weeks, Gym Jim is your go-to man for questions about what on earth is going on.

Of course, I'll still be doing my best to hammer everything that happens into newsletter format.



[2] new players and characters

New players registered to the site since the last newsletter are Echthros and SaphhireX. Echthros may never have lurked in #dataclaw; I don't know for certain. SaphhireX meanwhile, not commonly an IRC RPer, has been subjected to a second attempt at recruiting her (she's a good friend of both Morgrim and me), but will unfortunately probably not show up again.

New characters are:

John Caliper (by Echthros), albeit little more than a name. Not introduced.

Daniel Somers a/k/a Manasbadhna, a new Bitscorch-related character belong to Reh, introduced with Log #465.

Finally, Samantha Collins a/k/a Samanya isn't a new character, but Cali's finally made a profile for her, sating my OCD everything-needs-a-profile fetish.



[3] plotline // pandiamonium

The last newsletter ended with Dageraadar leading the group up to the edge of the extinct volcano towering in one corner of Pandiamonium, one of the highest points in the landscape, to give them a rough idea of the map - and the size - of the area. With that achieved and mental notes made on part of the Citizens (right along with 'there's a dragon living in the centre of that volcano'), Dageraadar led them back down along a different path, convincing them to free Veranar, the Guardian of the Grass Moon, both as an aid quoted amicable toward them and as a potential source of a quest, something the group still didn't have.

They don't quite make it down to Veranar's lair before the quest finds them, though: Natternholz, the Blood Moon Guardian, having stumbled across Dread's corpse and following the trail leading from to its cause, discovers the group and proves to be quite open in her communication. She reveals herself as an arch-enemy of Yanardagar's (the Cinder Moon Guardian, the aforementioned dragon) and offers them 'the most basic quest of all' - to slay the dragon [#461].

Unfortunately, it's blatantly obvious that she's similarly powerful to the other Guardians, if not moreso. In effect, when given the choice between (1) slay the dragon, (2) do nothing and learn to live in Pandiamonium (expressly communicated as an option she would support) [#462] and (3) oppose Natternholz, probably on a principle, in knowing that Yanardagar would likely be no different to her in such a scenario... the group chooses despite their concerns [#463] to go along with her plan.

Her plan is two-fold: Rather than engaging Yanardagar directly, which would do little to prevent a Cinder Moon from occurring again, she, too, recommends freeing Veranar, citing him as a valuable ally should combat occur. Once that's been achieved, her plan is to guide the Citizens to prevent the Gale Moon from waxing full, which should suffice to permanently prevent the Cinder Moon from invoking catastrophical forest fires.

Frederick, still perturbed by the general reaction to his having killed Dread, is the one to volunteer for Veranar's sacrificial mini-quest, ending up locked in place amongst the foliage. Hakumele, social animal that she is, is horrified by the idea of him being left mostly to himself while the others are off completing the sim quest, and offers to ferry smaller avatars between the group and Frederick so he can talk to them [#464]. Adrethyrian decides to keep him company throughout, though his presence alone does not suffice to add actual normalcy to the situation. Left chiefly to his own thoughts, Frederick's nightmares (since Dread's death) get worse [interludes: Ghostwriting Memoirs; Perpetuity; Brink], but he endures them.

Meanwhile, the group reaches Katabatia's lair, where Natternholz recommends not freeing her from her slumber, but instead killing her while she's in stasis - a trivial matter of popping a few balloons and letting her get squashed by her own Moon Gate, unflattering as that would be. It's one of a few potential deaths the Guardian could endure: Either the group wake her, explain the situation and convince her to phaselock the Gale Moon, in which case she would die much like a human who's heart has set out; or they wake her, explain the situation, attract her ire and she dies in battle, potentially harming others on the way; or they kill her in her sleep.

Joukahainen protests loudly about the notion of killing her at all, trying to prevent Natternholz from popping the balloons holding Katabatia's lair aloft and instead tumbling off the construct leading up to it. She saves him, but at cost of paralysing him for the transgression, dragging him off and trying to figure out what part of him made him react so 'irrationally' [#467]. She finds the memory of Shahrivar and his personal debt to save lives and worlds wherever possible, lecturing him about trying to impose his morality on a world clearly not made for it, and proceeds to doctor the memory out of his head, leaving him in mental anguish and confusion while she returns to the others to finish Katabatia off [#469].

Knowing that Natternholz took an important memory from him, but without remembering which it is, Joukahainen takes Yyasprakis and treks down through the landscape to where Adrethyrian and Frederick are, wanting to get away from Natternholz. He finds them and explains what happens. They fill him in on what he's forgotten, granting him the knowledge of the events without the visceral emotional attachment, and he comes to some terms with his new state, devoid of that perpetual ache [#474]. He decides to stay with them.

Back with the main group, a small group treks up to the Gale Moon with instructions from Natternholz to find the Moon's 'Heart' (in a 'you'll know it when you see it' sort of way, chiefly), finding the Moon itself to be at least as vast as Pandiamonium itself and uncertain how to find anything... or how to get back [#468]. It takes them a few days to find their goal and destroy it (a day before the next Cinder Moon).

For everyone still on Pandiamonium, the effect is immediately visible - the Gale Moon explodes into several glowing shards that rain from the sky and onto the landscape, fortunately harming none of the travellers. With the death of the Moon immediately affecting the Cinder Moon's capabilities, the sacrifices reverse - Lucy can hear again, Joukahainen can see again, and Frederick is free from what tied him to the landscape. The group that had trekked up to the Gale Moon, however, are conspicuously amiss, and for a while, the worst is feared. The Guardians accompanying the group, however, seem entirely unfazed and try to assure them that their friends are still alive - although they can't explain where they are.

Since Yyasprakis had proven time and time again to have an excellent 'people radar', the group follows Joukahainen's trail hoping to find the golem spider still down where Frederick ought to be, desperately on the move as not to be a sitting target for Yanardagar, presumably enraged as he is. On the way, they encounter one Moon Shard that is different from the ones they witnessed so far: It contains Shrisa. With the mystery of where their friends are solved, the group gets Shrisa out of her glassy prison, waking her out of a stasis [#470].

The four characters Yyasprakis, Frederick, Adrethyrian and Joukahainen prove not to be very far from Veranar's lair at all, and return to the group. Using Yyasprakis, the group treks along the landscape to find and free each Shard-trapped Citizen in turn: Lyra, Gunther, Bob, Miridia and Kerras.

The final Shard-trapped Citizen, Elizabeth, however, proves to be a bit difficult to extract: Yanardagar has camped on her Shard since shortly after it fell from the sky, waiting for the group to come to him rather than searching for them throughout Pandiamonium. Joukahainen, accompanied by two body guards Yyasprakis and Adrethyrian (in human form), is sent out to speak to him, finding out that he's made up his mind about killing Elizabeth but waited to find out if they would deem her death a fair trade for that of Katabatia's, or if he would have to fight and kill the rest of them afterward.

Joukahainen offers himself in exchange for Elizabeth, but falters as he's asked to step forward. He instructs Yyasprakis to retrieve Elizabeth, nudging the dragon with his barely contained rage into true battle. Adrethyrian, predictably, shifts forms, but is flung aside. While the dragon wrestles with Yyasprakis, Joukahainen manages to smash the Shard, freeing Elizabeth; she's whisked aside by Adrethyrian and away from the battlefield. The Shard, still largely intact, is used by the dragon as a weapon and punctures Joukahainen's shoulder, prompting Yyasprakis to position itself to protect him. It is at that point that Adrethyrian resurfaces and ends the battle, catching Yanardagar off guard enough to land a killing blow [#472].

The sim ends as the Gale Moon did - by coming apart in splinters.



[4] plotline // camp tumbling milestone

The world the travellers find themselves dumped into after Pandiamonium greets them enigmatically - less by content and more by context. Rather than suffering an avatar reset, the group finds themselves still equipped with the avatar-switching devices from Pandiamonium, allowing Joukahainen and Adrethyrian a manual avatar switch to recover from their wounds. Furthermore, Adrethyrian's language blessing in human form remains, letting him speak in English while in that form.

As far as content goes, they find themselves clustered together in a room with a projector begging to be set into motion. Once the initial disorientation of being dumped into a new sim passes, they do, and are greeted by a nameless man explaining that they're now working toward being 'psychonauts' in a camp geared to preparing them for it. As the reel finishes, the floor drops out from under them, revealing that they're several kilometres above the ground and steadily falling [#473].

Before they hit the ground, a campfire comes into view, along with an aged man sipping his tea, who catches them psychokinetically and cushions their fall (a little, at least). Once they're all safely fallen, he introduces himself as Rast Mufasa, coach of the camp, and takes note of their names, then gives them directions to camp and the advice not to spend too long getting there, as nighttime is apparently a little hazardous in the area [#475].

The group heads there after a brief moment of rest, coming across Mufasa speaking with a gorilla-human hybrid of sorts and a lady going by the name of Adreine Seth evidently assigned to them as a supervisor of sorts, and considerably less all-round pleasant. Elizabeth chickens out of introducing herself to Seth at first, wanting to ask about the hybrid but not wanting to ask Seth, instead scooting after Mufasa to ask him. The others meanwhile introduce themselves to Seth, who is unimpressed [#476], but ultimately instructs them to find themselves a bunk. It's a prompt for Adrethyrian to check on Apolline, trying to convince her to stop her usual, socially orthogonal shenanigans and find a bunk, eventually successful [#477].

Since the day of their arrival, the group has noticed a distinct lack of nighttime. In fact, it doesn't seem like the sun in the sky of Camp Tumbling Milestone is planning to set anytime soon, and hasn't done so for the whole one and a half weeks they've been there. The Puppets of course are wholly unfazed and entirely convinced that they've been there only for a few hours - which might explain why the associated paperwork for them to be trained as psychonauts is still not done.

It's a heavy-handed hint that 'in-character' time in this sim is event-driven.

The exploration this has allowed them to spend ample time with has yielded very little of note, though. At most, it's been observed that the gulls around the local lake don't actually seem to be keen landing on it - and despite the resulting lack of fish being eaten, there are plenty fishbones decorating the beach.



[5] plotline // other

Back in the offline world, Manasbadhna (Daniel Somers) contacts Project Bitscorch to exchange information on the Wildcard network. He's been monitoring Vector's connection for a while and has a few theories of his own as to what exactly is going on with the network and why it seems to difficult to pry people offline, though the core of it is too complex technically for Justin, who first speaks to him, to grasp all implications [#465].

Less fortunately, Hakumele's offline body dies after a year of concentrated effort to keep her effectively comatose self alive. While a technological milestone, Daniel Fawkes understandably does not quite manage to be exultant about the information gleaned, though he does stubbornly look forward rather than back in a conversation with Justin. He also shares all data gathered about her state and connection with Bitscorch, hoping they can use it to combat the network more efficiently [#466].

There are also four out of sequence network plot sessions to account for: #458 is backdated to FlemTamer44's arrival (the 30th of March), wherein Paul attempts to explain the current confusing situation to the newcomer. Then there's #459, which involves Joukahainen trying to smooth things out between Frederick and Elizabeth, since latter's been avoiding former. The awkward result isn't quite a success, but it's at least something. Another session, #460 involves Israel recovering from the blow to her head and speaking to Frederick, the two failing to find any common ground. Finally, #471 is also backdated to the West Africa group's arrival (the 30th of March) and involves an introductory... hitch of Apolline's being smoothed over, Adrethyrian effectively adopting her as a protégé; mostly because he's concerned if no one keeps an eye on her, she may honestly accidentally kill someone.