1st leaf | [video/text]

[tortileghostwriter]

[The video turns on at first to show a kid that...well, he looks a lot like Dave Strider, except not. No shades, lighter skin, lighter hair, purple eyes...hell, he looks just as much like Rose Lalonde. He looks angry, unamused, and very, very tired. With a very new side dose of slight surprise at realizing the video had already begun recording.]

Ugh, I knew that I should have just gone with text...

[Said quietly, mostly to himself. More like a more erudite, non-Texan Dave. With an echo? Huh. Must just be the mic. Yeah, sure. He cuts the feed, shortly followed by this message.]


i will readily admit that being pulled from a null universe doomed to be yet another footnote in the annals of paradox space and into whatever dimension that this tower occupies was quite felicitous indeed
auspicious even
certainly adventitious if only by its very nature
and i suppose that i owe our assuredly ever so gracious hosts some credit in that regard
however
i have business to attend to in the incipisphere
more specifically the land of crystal and mirage
and i will simply not be kept from it
so i believe that my first order of business will be to proceed to aggrieve aggress and attack
until i have stolen away the secrets that this infernal place has to hide
as i said to strider once before
lets rock the fucking house

Comments

[video]

[tortileghostwriter]

[Slight bit of a sheepish look kind of slips past.]

I haven't... not as such, no.

[video]

[salamancer.livejournal.com]

Where are you currently located? Obviously you are in the libraries if you have found access to the network, so why don't we start by you checking what section of the library is near your terminal?

[video]

[tortileghostwriter]

[There's a pause, as he stands up, walking around a bit to observe the signage before sitting back down.]

Classics.

[video]

[salamancer.livejournal.com]

I will find you shortly.

[And the video feed is cut off.]

[no transmission]

[tortileghostwriter]

[doop doop doop waiting. possibly spinning in his chair a little.]

[salamancer.livejournal.com]

[And she's going to show up right behind him, wearing her black and pink dress and twirling her wands in her hands.]

Greetings, David.

[tortileghostwriter]

[Aaaand he's wearing a black and purple outfit with a chainmail shirt underneath. The Spiral Stairmitar is sitting next to him, spacial dimensions warping slightly around it. His shadow's still writhing and shifting lazily. Forgive him a brief mildly surprised expression.]

... ah. Greetings, Rose.

[Huh. That echo wasn't just the microphone.]

[salamancer.livejournal.com]

...Is this a normal occurrence for your person, or do you happen to be on your way to grimdark at the present time?

[Been there, done that. But definitely not like this.]

[tortileghostwriter]

... It's recent.

[He stands, picking up the Spiral Stairmitar and holding it down towards the ground.

At this point, the lead breaks from the path decided for him by predestination, making contact with a precursor on the hollow way he's taken. They are allways thirteen.

Only a monster of the girl, not even the girl herself, only a distant echo, forgotten by time and changed into nightmares, only revolutions of ruin.

Quiet.]

[salamancer.livejournal.com]

Would you be interested in talking a walk as we discuss things? I can show you around the necessary pieces of the tower. And explain things further, if you wish it.

But first of all... Our timelines. [She begins to walk through the library, expecting that he would follow.] My assumption is that I am further ahead than you, despite the fact we are from different times. [She tucks her wands under her waist sash.]

[tortileghostwriter]

[He nods, walking along with her. He just keeps the Stairmitar at his side, not having a convenient method of stowing it. David hesitates before speaking, not wanting to say it, but...]

I had only learned of my mother's death just under an hour prior to my arrival. Rose-- my Rose, of course-- had just set off to locate the Tumor.

[salamancer.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I am most certainly much ahead of you, then. Before arriving here, I was on my way to deliver the Tumor to the Green Sun. Both Dave and I are dead, slain by Jack.

I believe you are the only one from your timeline present here, David. But on that note, all of us seem to be from different points in time. While Dave and I are from the same time, Kanaya is quite behind us. I cannot speak for the rest of the trolls, however, for I don't particularly speak with them.

[tortileghostwriter]

So my delightful backwards suicide swandive into the Sun is indeed a Thing. How serendipitous. I haven't the slightest idea what I might have done without that knowledge.

[:|]

[salamancer.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel any much better, your Strider will be adamant on doing it themselves.

[tortileghostwriter]

Jade? Doubtful.

[salamancer.livejournal.com]

So Jade is the Strider of your session, is she? I find it rather hard to imagine her anything other than a Harley. Her with your-- excuse me, Daves coolkid persona is just simply laughable.

[tortileghostwriter]

She's rather bad at it.

[salamancer.livejournal.com]

Just wait until you meet Dave, and perhaps even our Jade if she is to arrive. I think you will be quite amused, to say the least.

Do you have any questions about the Tower, or perhaps even the session in which I am from?

[tortileghostwriter]

It's less amusing and more completely fucking bizarre, actually.

I believe that I can guess at most of the broader details.

[Quiet for a moment, carefully considering all of this, recalling his conversations with that egregious white-texting pedophile.]

On second thought, there may be something. What can you tell me about the Scratch?

[salamancer.livejournal.com]

As I am not sure specifically what it is about the Scratch you wish to know, I will overlay it as a whole for you.

The Scratch is, as you know, our hard reset for our session in the event that it has proven quite unwinnable. The scratch is to be performed by, at least in our particular case and I assume it would translate over as myself based on what you have told me, John. The only object hard enough to properly perform the Scratch is Echnidnas quills, that of which you can find with Jades-- no, Johns?-- denizens. Upon initiating the Scratch, it will force Jack to flee our session into the trolls session, thus preserving the alpha timeline, and ultimately create a session with alternate versions of ourselves in which we can retreat to and survive.

Does that answer your inquiries, David? Or perhaps there is something else?

[tortileghostwriter]

Then you've also discussed it with that egregious white-texting douchebag.

[A pause, mulling over everything, thinking back to the conversation he hadn't quite finished having when he was pulled to the Tower.

You’ll need a hammer of sufficient strength to shatter the device completely.
TG: that doesnt seem much like a scratch
TG: it also doesnt provide enough room for endless puns on the nature of this place as a game
This session has to play a little more fast and loose with those sorts of things.]

I wouldn't know anything about the so-called Quills of Echidna, I'm afraid... ? I was told that your-- ...her-- Denizen possessed a hammer that would be needed to shatter the Rhythm Axe. I essentially just told him that I'd be referring to it as the Break.

[And a deep breath, debating whether or not he should say this, his facial expression carefully measured... this entire thing was infuriating and absolutely will-breaking, but he's not about to let himself break.]

There is one thing.

My session is a scratched session, Rose.

[salamancer.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

[She nods a little.] Perhaps it is another example of our alternative positions? Ours is a Quill in order to scratch across the Beat Mesa in Daves world of LOHAC. So same principle, different settings, I would say.

[He gets a quirk of the brow at his expression-- she was a Lalonde, so it was rather difficult to mask your expressions against one just as equally arted at the masking-- and then a frown.]

You... pardon? [You've made her temporarily speechless, David.] Does that perhaps mean that... your session is the one we created with the scratch...?

[tortileghostwriter]

[He sees that eyebrow quirk, but like hell is he going to break the facade.]

It seems likely. My informant said that, specifically, it was the result of a Scratch where someone established certain parallels beforehand.

It only doomed us a second time.

[salamancer.livejournal.com]

...I apologize. That was not our intent.

[tortileghostwriter]

[He's angry as all hell, and it's starting to show on his face.]

"The same cancer. The same unstoppable adversary." The Scratch isn't a means to salvation, it's erasure. Of everything, with the data recombining into new permutations to create a new world and session equally doomed to die. We are only revolutions of ruin. Even if we were to do it again ourselves, what's to say that it won't all simply happen again?

[He's quiet for a long moment. The anger is mostly contained again, and when he speaks again it's quiet. Almost searching. He can't quite keep his tone in its usual measured state for it.]

What has all of this been for?

[It becomes clear at this point in the tale that the game is both creation myth and broken bildungsroman. As with any good fairy tale, the children enter the woods but never emerge again. A new world is consecrated with their spilled blood, and from their bones and ash emerge new life. This then invites the question from the reader: does that life deserve to be sacrificed?

Fuck the game. Die for the sake of birthing a world you'll never see, or go out like a roaring flame, in defiance of the whole fucking deathtrap.

Our contention is that the sceadugenga has a choice.

If you're to be a sacrificial lamb, then surely you should take control of how?]