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Anonymous ID:Z/MUEtt5 Sat 20 Jan 2024 02:02:31 No.5896769 View View Report

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>>5896732
BASED AND BEETLEPILLED.

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

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Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:A23gTW4T Fri 02 Jun 2023 10:19:50 No.5678247 View View Report

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"One of the most provocative things I discovered during my brief stint with goo," Garvin says, "was its affinity for ordinary articles of clothing. I would attempt to dress myself, but all-too-rapidly would find myself to be the dress. I suspect it comes from the distant origins— surely most people drowned wearing clothing, yes?"

You furrow your brow.

"I mean to say that, if you were holding it tightly in your palm, you likely absorbed it. A small, thin object would go quickly. Consider it useful! Now you never have to concern yourself with losing it. Try to put it on?"

"Oh god."

"Try! For my sake?"

Is his sake worth very much yet? Goddammit. Half-heartedly, you envision yourself in the bow tie, and shut that down as soon as you feel a twinge in your neck. "I-I-I'll... I'll pass."

"Well, it takes some getting used to. Still, think of the convenience— given lengthy exposure, it works on just about anything small, by the way. Your keys, a pistol..."

"Cards," you mutter. (You emerged roundly victorious over Madrigal and Pat, but not without heavy-duty sharping on all sides of the table. Aces were up more than just sleeves.)

"Cards! Precisely. Exploit what you have, is what I say, or somebody else will do it for you. Think on it!"

Garvin leads you away.

—

>[SOMEWHERE ELSE]

You dream in slithery snippets, mostly of being wet— of being submerged in mud, of being locked upright inside a clear saline-filled tube, of swimming in the jelly of a horizon-sized eyeball. It's uneasy, restless stuff...

>[ID: 14/14]

...but you nevertheless awaken feeling far better than you did. This is not a high bar. You are Charlotte Fawkins, and you are underneath a tree, in a hammock, and it's morning.

Your initial confusion gives way to confusion: the manse? Still? Is that, er, allowed? Healthy? Gil's been sleeping in one, you guess, but he's not real... well, positive thinking. It was only one time, and it hasn't been all that long, by the sky, so you're fine. Your mind's taken way worse beatings than this!

The hammock creaks obnoxiously as you swing out of it, and the tree shakes, losing a couple leaves... oh. Hmm. And a beetle. "Gil?" you say.

No response. You shield your eyes and look up: there's certainly several dozen beetles flitting about up there, not to mention chewing on leaves and things. "Gil! I'm up?"

They flit. They chew. Positive thinking. "GILBERT! I HAVE AWOKEN!"

"Ahh!" Each of the tree beetles zip directly upwards, some of them smacking into branches. "Ah— ah— aw, shit... you scared me..."

"You scared me!" You fold your arms. "I thought the beetles ate you! Where's your body?"

"Um... working on the siphon. I-I-I didn't want to leave you all alone... um, I-I was resting too."

"You were eating," you say accusingly.

"...They sort of do whatever they want, um, when I-I'm not giving any directions. I-It's actually pretty nice to just relax, and, um... you know..."

(4/5)

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

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Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:0/H4/aGF Fri 13 Jan 2023 12:21:53 No.5529951 View View Report

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>Delegation
>21, 49, 20 vs. DC 40 — Mitigated Success

So you don't ask Pat. Duh. "Um, that's good. So you— was it easy for her to make you that? How long did it take? Did it hurt?"

Madrigal side-eyes you. "Richard gave up, huh?"

Your footsteps echo against the walls of the sewer.

"Uh-huh. Well, it didn't seem that hard, it didn't take that long... well, not that long to be functional. Took a couple days to look spiffy. And it didn't hurt, but it was a— a shock to the ol' senses, I'll put it like that. Being stuck in a snake was..." She takes a deep breath. "I can't remember it that well. Think that's probably good."

You don't care about the snake thing, or more accurately can't— if you start thinking about more than one thing, you're going to think about all sorts of things. "That is good. I guess. Um, that all sounds like... er... you know, I know someone who might need a body, actually. So that's funny."

"How convenient," Pat says. Madrigal side-eyes you harder. "Like a... ghost someone?"

"No! No, I just— um, he got stuck in a manse, basically, for a long time, and he can't get back to his real body, so he's been, um, hanging out... in my, um..."

"What the fuck? How many men do you have in there?"

One. "...Two. Though he's not really a— a man, uh, per se— he's a lot of beetles? Not on purpose, it just—"

"Bug guy! Oh, shit! I remember bug guy! Sorry, I— you know, it's all blocked off— he used to be a normal guy?"

"Yes."

Madrigal whistles. "That's some shit. No, yeah, I think this'd be an improvement over bugs. Pat, would it be that hard to—?"

"Piss off," she says flatly.

"Oh, come on, don't start shit. Why? You got something against bugs? Charlotte says he wasn't bugs on purpose—"

"Does he have blood?"

Madrigal looks at you. You look down. Richard said... "No."

"Then it's unreliable. Too much trouble."

It'd be more plausible if her voice wasn't so hard. You look pleadingly at Madrigal, who cocks her head. "Don't think I had blood."

"You were easy to extract, champ.."

"So fucking what? Come on, it's not like you don't have materials— I saw all the shit you had pumping through there— don't you want to do something decent for somebody, since you're such a decent fucking person?"

Pat's fists clench.

"I'm just saying, as your new boss, it'd be a good look to— you know— show some fucking initiative—"

"Okay," she snaps. "I'll do a basic treatment. I've never done it on bugs, so I can't guarantee anything. If there's complications, that's your problem. I wash my hands of it."

If there's complications, he'll have to stick around long enough to get them treated— or forever, if they're really, really bad. Madrigal looks about to protest, but you cut in. "That's fine."

"Great." Pat jerks her head. "Take a left."

(1/2?)

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

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Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:bFAtGa2j Fri 16 Dec 2022 10:51:22 No.5498956 View View Report

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That's how you lived through the initial shock of it, you think. Past the screaming and the overstimulation, the jagged motion and the clawing feeling you'd been blown to pieces, you had this maxim tattooed into you: calm down. Calm down. This happens sometimes. Loci fuck you up. Your real body's fine (your real body isn't lying thin and loose on the ground), and as soon as somebody swings by to grab you you'll be out of here. You'd been told all this a million times, you believed it in the core of your being, and so you clung bitterly on. Because how goddamn embarrassing would it be for you to kick it on your first real solo outing? For Phin or Neal or somebody to waltz in to check up on you and find dying equipment and an empty skin?

You were sure they'd waltz in. For weeks you were sure. But as the terror wore off and the tedium set in, the odds of rescue began to slip from definitely to probably to maybe to nil. You huddled listlessly. You beat yourself against the walls. You hallucinated off and on and eventually more on than off. At some point— you don't know how far in— you realized that you were going to die there. That all you were doing was prolonging your suffering. That the rational thing to do would be to give in. That's what you told yourself, it was the rational thing. Anybody in your position would do the same.

Anybody in your position except you.

Why is it that you yet live?

Because you were scared of death? It's the most obvious explanation, except that you didn't see a way death could be any worse. You didn't believe in hell, not really, and the infinite void would've been a borderline improvement.

Because you were scared of dying? Sure, except all you would've had to do was relax. Struggling on as yourself required concentration, pathetic mantras (you are Gil Wallace, one 'l' in Gil, two in Wallace, age 25...), scrubbing back and forth through your memories until you wore holes in them. You could've just stopped, could've just gone to sleep, fully, all at once, and consciousness would've lifted from you like a fine mist. It would've been complete. It would've been painless. It might've even been dignified. It was probably the best you ever could've hoped for.

And you still didn't do it. Because you were special? No. Because you didn't deserve it? You were a shitty person and you knew it. Because somebody out there would care if you dissolved into beetles? Apparently not. Because you had intrinsic meaning, and value, and purpose? Because you had some kind of destiny not to die? You didn't believe in any of that shit. If you had a conviction, any conviction, it was this: life was a crapshoot, and you rolled snake eyes every time.

(2/6)

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

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Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:3ICU1KoN Thu 10 Nov 2022 11:55:54 No.5458387 View View Report

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And then there's a little arrow of beetles darting toward you, and then there are beetles on you, their hook feet clawing into your face and your neck, and you yank the fabric of your vest and hold it so you don't swat them off through pure mechanical instinct. And Gil is saying "Lottie!" right in your ear and "I-I-I thought you were dead!" and you knew he'd think that, owing to the circumstances and also frankly to his overall disposition, but it— you don't know if he'd be saying it like that if he were happy about it, you guess.

>[+1 ID: 7/13]

He streams off you then and re-clouds a foot from your face— the beetles are nearsighted, you faintly remember. You rub your cheek. "Yeah, I... still alive. Yes. Um..."

You didn't mean to do anything. Hell, you didn't do anything— it was the red stuff that vanished you, really. Nobody sane could hold you responsible for vanishing and worrying him, and anyhow he worries too much, all things considered, it probably hasn't been longer than a couple minutes since he's still right here— "...sorry. I didn't mean to, um— it was an accident."

"I-I-I didn't think it was on purpose? I-I just thought you got eaten, like the locus up and goddamn— I mean, it just absorbed you! I-I thought you, you ticked it off, or something, because you were doing all that—" He stops short.

"Yeah," you say slowly. All that attempting-not-to-murder-Certified-Liaison-Draven. "Well, no. Er... maybe? Maybe it spat me out, or, um... but no, I didn't die. I just went and talked to the thing that's making this whole—"

You briefly explain the conversation with Us. Gil has no eyes to widen (or rather has way too many), but he sounds suitably impressed when you finish. "So we're i-in the afterlife?"

"What? Um..." Is that sacrilegious? "I don't think we're in the afterlife? I think it's sort of artif—"

"I-I-I know! But you're saying these are actually dead people? Aw, geez. Every single one of these guys—"

"Don't say it so loud," you hiss.

"—they're real? They're real people. Who are dead." Gil jitters. "Goddamn. Are— are we dead? Am I-I-I haunting the corpse of some guy who died 200 goddamn—"

"You're haunting his beetles, I think." You pause. "Where's the rest of you, by the way? I don't see you in line...?"

"Uh, I-I-I don't—" He alights tentatively on your outstretched palm. "I-I thought he'd be here... that's why I, uh— why I went. But I-I-I'm guessing, um, if he's not here, then..."

-

You didn't need to search: the other Gil comes striding right up to you like he didn't directly disobey your noble orders. He's wreathed in beetles and grinning— grinning— and more than that, he reaches out a hand and your Gil is pulled to him like a magnet. "Hi, Lottie."

(2/5?)

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

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Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:e6HKj99y Fri 12 Aug 2022 19:33:36 No.5370746 View View Report

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>*slaps head of Charlotte* this YOUNG WOMAN can fit so many MENTAL PROBLEMS in here

"So— so you want me to be negative?" you say. "You want me to be a— a negative thinker? Like you? You want me to have a breakdown, Gil? Because that's what negative thinking leads to— mental weakness, and patheticism, and- and a complete dulling of the noble spirit, because, you know, if you start negative thinking you can't ever stop, it's pathological, is what it is— it rots your faculties. So you are no longer able to control yourself, and where previously you would stand strong and unbowed like a- a positive-thinking mighty tree— now you collapse from any minor inconvenience. Which is not an appropriate trait for a heroine. Of course—"

Gil's silence makes you feel a little weird. (Not negative-weird, of course, just regular-weird.) "Of course, um, I'm not saying that you're weak, and pathetic, and have, um— I was just speaking generally. In a general sense. I think you're... you have a lot of good qualities... it was cool how you, um, fought the Headspace people."

"That wasn't me," he says shortly.

"Well, it was basically— and also you took that bullet for me? And almost died, Gil, I think that's—"

"I didn't take a bullet for you. I was a fucking hostage."

You lift your blindfold a tiny bit over your good eye and are pleased to discover you can see something. You are less pleased to recollect that Gil, being a mound of beetles, has no facial expression to decipher. "See," you say reproachfully. "You're negative thinking right now."

"Yeah." Is he annoyed at being called out? He sounds bitter. "Alright, I-I-I think we're about done, then. Come get me i-i-i-i-if you think I'll actually be any help with anything. Or just leave me here. I-It doesn't really matter."

"Yes it—" He's rising into the air. "Hey! Of course it matters! Gil! Sit down! We were in the middle of— I think you help with things, you just— please come down? You know I can't fly, so it's not fair that— it's not fair. The only reason I can't tell you about any of my stupid problems is because I don't have any, okay? It's like you said. I'm— I'm just that magnificently cool. I've never had problems in my whole life. I don't ever know what a problem is, really. I— I just— GIL!"

He's out of arm's reach, even if you jumped. He's taken up residence near the top of one of the gleaming white columns. You push the blindfold all the way off your good eye and scrabble to your feet. "Come DOWN! You're not allowed to be up— put your BODY on! Where even is it?! I spent a DAY working on it, and you just—"

"I-I-It's not here. I-I-I-I-I took it to my locus."

"And left it there?!"

"No. I-I'm in it. I-I-I just left myself here so you wouldn't get nervous."

What? He— actually, now that you're looking at him, he does seem smaller than usual. You don't know how to feel about this. "Oh. Um. Will you come down now? Please?"

(1/3?)

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

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Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:VmDDa4NW Fri 08 Jul 2022 05:24:51 No.5332010 View View Report

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Gil shakes his head.

"That's stupid. You're not a drag, you're just— you haven't done anything, okay? Madrigal has. Madrigal sucks. We hate Madrigal and her stupid body. If you had your normal body back, you know, we could go anywhere, we could—"

"I-I don't. And I-I-I don't know when that's gonna—"

"I'm working on it," you say a little guiltily. "Soon! Very soon! I will apply the full brunt of my magyckal energies on, um..."

"Soon like now? Or soon like i-in a week, or month, or—"

You suck at your cheek. "The length of time is as yet unknown to—"

"Then I-I want out. I-I-I can't do this any longer. People look at me, and..."

You don't understand. "But you'll be alone. I'll try and visit, but I can't—"

"I-I-I've been alone for a— for a while." Gil looks down. "At least I-I know I can't help while I'm in there."

You want to say something useful, but nothing at all comes to mind. On an objective level, this makes sense, even, with Monty's decree, but you don't care what Monty thinks, and you just... "Um, okay. I guess. We can't do it here, though, I'm not dragging a corpse back to—"

"That's fine," Gil says, and stands.

The walk back is awkward, and it's not any better by the time you steal back into Madrigal's empty tent. You attempt eye contact. "Can you... do it? Do you need help?"

He hesitates. "No." Then he walks stiffly to the rumpled cot, sits atop it, and furrows his brow. You flinch when he spasms all over, once, and his jaw flops open and his eyes cloud and for an instant the air's all wings and legs and then it's empty and Madrigal's body topples back onto the cot.

«What a pity. Choosing solitude over your companionship.»

That's not— that's not what he— YOU ARE LEAVING NOW, Richard, THE DOOR IS FLAPPING BEHIND YOU, YOU ARE GOING TO SEE FAKE ELLERY. Just in case he decided to kill himself over the whole not-Madrigal thing. (It'd be inconvenient.)

(2/3)

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

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Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:a/ozk0Es Sun 05 Jun 2022 18:50:42 No.5294885 View View Report

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"Yes!" You point with The Sword. "I have. And these sensations— these vibrations in the fabric of the universe, which I myself am exquisitely attuned to—"

Richard chokes on his cigarette, from the sounds of it. You point The Sword harder. "—which I myself am exquisitely attuned to, are telling me that Headspace is going to blow up soon. Or be set on fire. Or both? So there's really no reason not to tell me your dark secrets."

"Really?" Iris says. "What the fuck?" Glenn says. "Oh, don't do this shit to us," Allan mumbles. "Don't enable Iris—"

"Oh, yes, really." You nod vigorously. "That's how it works. And it seems like it's for the best, right? Because you guys are all saying weird things about here— they won't let you leave? That's weird. And, you know, my retainer had a horrible experience with a Headspace manse! He got turned into beetles and stuck inside for six months—"

More blank stares. God, these people are useless! "Your... what?" Glenn attempts. "Who got—?"

"My retainer. My... friend." (Richard snorts. You toss your head.) "And it's Headspace's fault he's beetles forever, so I think it's okay if it gets lit on fire. And it will. I'm not saying I'll light it on fire, but I might be around when it happens, right? And then you'll all feel bad for not telling me your—"

"I don't know what you're smoking," Allan says slowly, "but we don't... turn people into beetles."

"Well, your stupid broken manse did, so— wait, you guys don't have a cure, right?" (Imagine if you came back to Gil with a cure?) "We can count it as one of the dark secrets, if that helps."

"A cure for being turned into beetles. Oh, yes, sure, let me go and check my filing cabinet—"

"Allan," Glenn says.

"—oops, sorry, Glenn won't let me check my filing cabinet. But if I went and rifled through it, I would've found zero cures for something that doesn't actually happen ever."

"She said it was broken, Allan. Did your friend contact customer service?"

Well, he broke in, so you doubt it. "Maybe?"

"Okay... well, maintenance of a M.A.N.S.E. is entrusted to the consumer. We don't assume any liability for side effects of an unmaintained M.A.N.S.E., so... he can try contacting customer service, but, uh..."

It won't do anything, and they can't help. "Okay, whatever. Shut up about customer service. Back to Headspace blowing up. Which it will. Also, back to the fact that you've already told me a bunch of dark secrets, so I don't see what the big deal is? You're going to get fired or whatever regardless."

Glenn looks exhausted. "I don't know."

(2/5?)

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

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Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:20+oifTv Fri 18 Mar 2022 07:23:53 No.5198783 View View Report

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Ill? You flash immediately to locitis, and are about to say something when your better judgment rouses itself. If she's only been here for 5 days, she probably doesn't know about it, and if she does, know about it, she'll start wondering why you do. And that's how you wind up knocked on the head and stuck in a barrel going over a cliff, if you're remembering several Josey Hatchcock novels correctly. Certainly you could come out of that unscathed (especially if you pack a folding saw in your boot), but it seems prudent to avoid the potentiality.

"Ill 5 days ago?" you say.

"Yes, miss." Ida looks annoyed. "Though apparently she'd been sickly for some time, so one does have to wonder why she left such a disaster behind. I mean, honestly, the bugs..."

Your eyes meet Gil's. "Um, what sort of bugs?"

"Damned if I know... pardon my language. I mean, look at this." Her fear apparently forgotten, she pushes some official-looking stationary over the desk. You lean over it: the margins are crowded with lovingly rendered sketches of beetles.

Ida takes your widened eyes as commiseration. "I know. I don't know what sort of person would—"

Beetles. "Cora." 5 days ago, give or take. The Sword in your hand— though it wasn't really your hand, was it? You lick your lips. "Er, would you mind if I took a moment?"

She thinks it's strange, visibly, but shrugs. "I'm not in a hurry."

You nod and drag Gil away with you, over toward the plant. "You were stuck in her manse," you hiss.

"I-I-I-I what? I-I was— you mean—" He looks unsubtly at Ida.

"Not her, stupid! The old one! The— Cora. Cora. With the beetles, and the..." She was in the bottom layer, and you stabbed her, and drained the Law from her blood. (Which wasn't a bad thing to do, or an evil thing. It was for mercy, really.) But it had to be her. What other Coras are there? "I swear to God it's her."

Gil studies your face. "I-I-I mean, there has to be hundreds of identical shitty loc— um, manses... are you that sure? Because, um, coincidences do happen, but this'd be... i-i-it'd be a fucking coincidence, if you know what I..."

"A-ha. There you go. It's destiny, Gilbert, not a coincidence, and—" You're still signing, but you've drifted onto other thoughts of coincidences, and dates, and locitis. Did Cora have locitis? Because she was sickly, apparently, and she definitely seemed all screwed up when you met her, hence the mercy. But then again she only fell properly ill after you, er, delivered said mercy, and that certainly didn't take place within the 3-month window Horse Face claimed for locitis... though that did seem awfully short. Has it still been going on, all this time, and something just happened 6 months ago to make people think it stopped? Did the symptoms change? Did everyone just forget? Poor Madrigal, broken up with and hit with a mystery mass mind-wipe, all in the sa...me...

(2/4)

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