week one, day one.

[potentialman]

[ Good day, Manhattan. Did you have fun at the Ren Faire? Did you absolutely hate the Ren Faire?

Here's a guy who doesn't actually care either way, he's just here to give you his notes before the test. ]

Hello. Hopefully everyone had the chance to get the basic rundown about Sleep during the dream, but I have a few things that may also prove useful.

We call this psychic network the Murmur. It's pretty versatile and you're not limited to sending messages as speech or text. Images, feelings, and memories are all fair game. It's also possible to revisit old conversations if you know how to find them -- either because you were there at the time, or if someone else helps you find them.

If you think of all of this as a tangle of threads, it's just a matter of grabbing the one you want and tracing it back. So, if you can get ahold of this one and follow it -- I've been keeping track of the main points of what we've learned about this place, and anything that might help us get to the bottom of it. Some of it is background information or things that we haven't pieced together yet, but some of it should help you get your bearings.

Most importantly: the city map.

Dr. Bashir has a clinic set up at Columbia University, if you need medical attention. We can also help you with a place to crash or help getting supplied. We're towards the north end of the island, though, so if you've found yourself further south, others may be in a better position to help you.



That aside, I have a couple of questions for those of us who were already here. Before the latest dream, when the voids were appearing around the city -- I picked something up from the Murmur. A memory. I think it was how Two got trapped before we got here.

Did anyone else get something like that?

Second -- Agent Choi told me that the Murmur seems to have been created out of One's desire for connection. No specifics on who he wants connection with, or if it's just a general wish, but I know some people have talked to One before, so any insight on that would be appreciated.

I think that's all I have for now. As always, I'd be grateful for anything new you all can tell me.

Comments

[retaliatings]

Thank you for the information, I believe it might be beneficial if we could work out why we were picked. There must be some common denominator between us all.

[ he refuses to think their being here is pure Whimsy of some entity ]

[potentialman]

I can't discount the possibility of a commonality, but we seem to be a pretty varied bunch. It may take some serious digging.

[longwillows]

[Her message is preceded by a laugh. An ojou-sama laugh, to put it simply. Ohoho~]

Our cute little curator, at it again! Thank you for your hard work, as always.

Not something I learned from the void incidents, but I have some information that will probably be of interest.

[Well, at least she seems in better spirits than the last time she had something important to contribute to the archive...]

[potentialman]

[ He's just going to carefully sidestep the accusation of being cute. ]

What is it?

[ Definitely got his ears figuratively perking, though. Kalmiya always brings the goods. God bless you extroverts who have no issues picking the NPCs' brains... ♥ ]

[licencetoheal]

Well I'm feeling slightly vindicated in generally distrusting all the local cosmic entities.

[regulate]

How did you fare yourself during the last dream? I do hope it treated you somewhat well.

[potentialman]

There were a few close scrapes. I think I fared better than plenty of people did, though.

[ He did not get vaporized, so really, he has a lot less to complain about than he could. ]

Did you get through it okay?

[trashblaze]

[ Oh!! Megumi!! While he's right there— ]

Meggy, do you happen to have… mints or lemon candies… I'll trade some of my other candies for them.

[potentialman]

I don't know about mints. I'm pretty sure I've got a few lemon ones around, though.

[sorte]

It's connection with anyone.

[potentialman]

Is that straight from the horse's mouth?

[roedeer]

[ there's a part of him that's a little sensitive to what he wants to say, a frown slowly forming on his face as he's thought it over time and time again. it's something he tries not to talk about, so he engages the topic in the best way he can.

a soft voice speaks up, but can probably be overshadowed by others. ]

...What are our thoughts on death here?

[ a pause. ]

...I'll start. Initially, I thought it might be a method to escape, like waking up from a dream, but... I don't believe that anymore.

[potentialman]

...I never thought of death as a potential escape, but that's probably because I nearly died to get here in the first place.

[ It had taken some time before he was convinced that he wasn't, in fact, just flat out dead. ]

[exaltruistic]

Thank you for this, I ... might need help with finding a safe place to stay ... I can work in return, if anyone's in need of a psychologist.

( Which. He suspects there is probably a need for one. )

[potentialman]

A psychologist?

[ Haha. Yep, Megumi is definitely thinking hope you like overtime, buddy. ]

If you've wound up on the northern side of the island, Columbia has plenty of room. But if you're on the south side, I'd suggest talking to Aventurine.

[schietto]

I didn't see anything like the memory you did, but I did hear Espera's voice and her trying to explain what was happening.

[potentialman]

[ Oh, he...does not like the sound of that. #free eepy ]

That seems consistent with how she was caged in the dream...

[demoon]

( So others saw visions, too... He thought he was just losing it. )

I don't fully understand what's going on with Sleep, One, or any of them. But I did see something back then.

I'll try to share it now. It was something from One, I think.

( And he does try, but his own lack of familiarity with the murmur (no thanks to his avoidance of it) and his relating so well to the feelings of pressure and demanded answers means that it might hit harder than intended. )

[potentialman]

[ ...oof. Well, it might also be Megumi's own history with feeling pressured, but that does pack a punch, doesn't it. ]

Thanks, Guren. I'm not sure any of us fully understand what's going on with them...but the more pieces we get, the better the chance we can shake some sense out of it.

[sacral]

There is one question I have, generally speaking.

[ — for Megumi, as the resident shikigami expert, though the wash of his current circumstances aren't otherwise hidden.

A live image of an absolutely monstrous bird perched outside the red doors of his apartment. Something that doesn't look like any typical wild animal turned host, halfway between peafowl and raptor, body spooling ink and shadow. Her red eyes are in a configuration that loosely mimic that of the nightmares. With a bone-rattling shriek, she flares her wings, dark feathers puffing. She is very scary, very dramatic. ]

I'm certain this was a horse. [ almost deadpan. ] What do you make of that?

[potentialman]

...about that.

[ The mental image Megumi offers up in return is of a large gray dog, with the same wolflike features as Kuro and Shiro. This one, though, is a smoky gray, and her form ripples softly like the nightmares, with the same loose sense that they're not quite solid. ]

I'd guess they're able to settle into a form that's more reflective of the person they're bonded to.

Medical Training/Care

[licencetoheal]

Regarding the clinic and medical care, if anyone new has medical experience or training, even if incomplete, your help would be greatly appreciated. I'd be willing to further your training. Even if's just making sure you're supplied and up on your first aid care for incidents you encounter in the streets.

We have some other people who can offer care - healers, people with some first aid training, even a veterinarian. But the more medical professionals, and the more training, the better.

If you have any medical concerns, feel free to also reach out. It'd also be wise to come in for an examination so I have a baseline. The powers and changes caused by this place can change anatomy. It's far easier to repair something if I know what it's supposed to look like when it's undamaged, and we do have some limited power, enough to sometimes run imaging scans.

[hallowedly]

'Even a veterinarian,' ah, Dr. Bashir remembers my humble service...

[furtitude]

So what I'm getting from all the super vague stuff about Sleep and these number guys is we don't know who to kill yet. Or how to take them out.

Can someone just gimme a heads up when they figure that out? I usually don't handle the "what we're doing about this" side of things as much back home. A little, but I roll with a crew and some of the others handle that more.

I handle more of the "doing things about it" part.

[He's not stupid. He can handle things sometimes when he's on his own. But he also usually has other people to lean on. More often, he might offer suggestions or insight when others are deciding what to do - he doesn't make those decisions himself. And this is a crisis that other people have dealt with longer and probably have better judgement about. He'd have a better idea of what to do if he'd been here dealing with it from the beginning.]

[Not great that his first thought goes to "who am I supposed to shoot?" though.]

[potentialman]

I think everyone will definitely hear about it if and when we get it figured out. We just wind up doing a lot of group speculation like this because everyone's been getting different pieces of the puzzle.

[ But, you know. No judgment to the people who just drop off anything they found and let everyone else do cartwheels with the hypotheticals.

Just, uh. As long as he doesn't get hasty on the "who to shoot" part. ]

[oversize]

Ah~ So we're finally psychically linked. This is probably bad news for you, Megumin~.

( teasingly. light-hearted. )

You've been here awhile, keeping tabs on everything...Means I don't have to do much, right~? But tell me where to help and I will. You did well so far.

( a pause that could almost be playful, but: )

And you'll tell me more about Shibuya, and your 'near death', as you're putting it. Later. ( yeah, he's been listening. quietly, for once. )

[potentialman]

How could the idea of having you in my head inspire anything but profound joy.

[ So deadpan. The most deadpan. He deadpans so he does not scream into the abyss.

...but he does, actually, appreciate the compliment. ]

I wouldn't get too used to not having to do much. When things get crazy here, they don't hold back.

[ But uuuuugh do they really gotta talk about Shibuya. ] I lived through it. That's the important part, right?

[dethangel]

One's being a douchebag so I don't know what kind of connection he wants other than being a douchebag. Maybe if he stops being a douchebag I can tell you. After his friends and me kick his ass.

[sorte]

I'm rooting for you, Toki~.

[hallowedly]

This all has the makings of spectating a family drama, doesn't it?

We're the incidental pets prone to thinking rather much of our potentially superfluous presence, while the adults quarrel.

[furtitude]

See, this is why every so often you have to bite someone. Then you make it clear you're not pet material.

[He's mostly joking because he knows these are powerful beings. But he does wish he could get away with biting them because he would if he could.]

[He's done it to people he dislikes on occasion. It sent the message.]

[merged]

We are so lucky to have you around, Megumi. [ A genuine flush of appreciation. ]

I did get a memory last month, but it didn't tell me anything new—nothing we hadn't already determined. [ She inserts the memory regardless. ] Like yours, it was how one of the Numerals got trapped. One couldn't control himself. Whenever one of them pressed too hard about Sleep, about where one of the other Numerals went, his abilities would react and poof, darkness for them.

What really gets me is that it doesn't even seem like he's tried to find them. We're out here rescuing his friends, and he's still out there mourning them like he killed them instead of doing something. [ Is she a bitter Betty? You bet your ass she is! ]

[potentialman]

[ aw shucks! ]

Even if it's not new, more context is never a bad thing. Thanks, Sharon. [ He'll add that one to the pile... ]

I'm...probably not on the highest ground to judge how someone else handles their depressive guilt trips [ vicious understatement ] but -- yeah. It's not like it's too late for him to try and help us do some damage control. They're not dead. [ ...yeah, okay, he may be feeling a touch of bitter Betty here himself, actually, but he's trying to stuff that way down deep because there's not just baggage, there's a matched set of designer luggage to go through. ]

[salaryman]

You're always so hard-working, Megumi-kun.

[potentialman]

Somebody has to be.

[sculptedash]

Nerd.

[potentialman]

You better hope nothing happens to me, or people might start looking to the next shadowbinder to do the nerd job.

[deflagrate]

[ well, isn't this helpful. ]

What a diligent young man you are. Would you mind it if I asked you a few questions?

[potentialman]

Somebody has to do it, might as well be me.

Ask away.

[tinflower]

[ Have you ever had a forum post play out in your head?? Gorgug now has! He hates it!

Because it's so much; and he kind of gets the feeling the guy seems to be going on about with threads and certain words leading to places, and hey! A map! but it's a lot. Maybe it's just Gorgug (it probably is), but it leaves his head feeling full, like cotton.

It's still there even as he eventually reaches out, a sort of wary, unsure reply: ]

Is there a... is everything psychic?

[potentialman]

[ Ah, right, he probably should've included that part... ]

You woke up wearing some kind of a mask or veil, right? That's your link to everyone.

If you need to take it off for a while, I'll still be around to answer questions later.

[athinkingreed]

10 points.

[Unless you poke him back, you are getting no more context than this and intense approval Megumi. Congratulations on in one post being mentally promoted to competent and potentially not an idiot for the well organized information.]

[potentialman]

I didn't realize I was being scored.

[hasitsthorns]

Are you telling me people are going to be able to hear my thoughts sometimes?

Oh, man. I hope people get really cool with 90s Pop and Rock music real fast. [ That kind of stuff is just eternally on loop in her mind. ]

[potentialman]

You would've been wearing some kind of a mask or veil when you woke up here. That's your connection to everyone's thoughts, so you can disconnect if you need to. You get better at controlling how much you send through with experience, too.

But you wouldn't be the first person to blast us with oldies.

[ He's a zoomer, 90s music is oldies... ]