mollowosh

[mollowosh]

V's Last Tea Shop | Day 3 (Actual Play)

This is the second session of my actual play of Last Tea Shop (it's session 2 but day 3 because time doesn't move linearly in the game). I suggest starting at Day 0, and also checking out my starting point so you have a better idea of what's going on.

Supplies:

Ancient seashell (1)

Bright gumdrop (1)

Sea salt (1)

Today’s weather is bruised purple fog. Any visitors might be pained.

It's day 3.

The little bell hanging over the door rings, and I look up from my book to see someone new stumble into my shop. He’s got a brown satchel slung around his shoulder, light grey leather coat, and a modest green flat cap on. He looks tired, the sort of tired that can only be accumulated through years and years of a life strained and void of comfort. 

“Hello there!” I say to him, closing my book and placing it on the counter.

He perks up, almost a flinch. “Oh oh… hi. Hello.” His voice matches his demeanor of exhaustion. “I’m uh… just looking for a someplace to rest for a little bit.”

“Well then, I think you found it. Stay as long as you like here, it’s safe - more importantly, it’s warm. You aren’t looking too good, would you like a cup of tea?”

“Ah, can you tell it’s been a rough journey? I’m not sure how much tea would help at the moment.”

“It’ll probably help more than you think. It’s also free, so…”

“Sure, I’ll take some.”

I spend 1 sea salt to create a Comforting Brew. While preparing the traveler his drink, I strike up another conversation.

“Tough journey, huh? You talkin’ bout the walk here, or just… life?”

“Both, I guess? I was a messenger. See a lot of weird shit in this line of work, but it was the only thing I found I could do. Dangerous work, at least in my area. Sorta job that’ll bite you at some point or another.” His tone darkened a bit at that line, and he closed his eyes. In a brief moment of silence I could almost see memories playing behind his eyelids, rest and restlessness fighting for the state of his memory. There was pain in there, relief perhaps, most certainly something lost.

“So it bit you, huh?” I said as I poured his beverage from the pot to a smaller cup.

“Ah, not really. It’s just nicer to think that it did. I uh… had something to deliver to some kind of noble, someone wealthy. It was just the beginning of spring, a time in which the sunshine finally peaks through the cloudy and damp mess that I call home and gets the flowers to bloom. Everything turns from shit to perfect for the season, and everyone tries to get out of their obligations to spend time in it. Unfortunately, when people are signing off or handing off work to others, that means they have more messages for others that they aren’t keen to deliver themselves. I decided that this was my last delivery for the season, as I had saved up just enough to afford a month or two relaxing on the balcony rather than trudging all day. Got impatient, you can get that, right? At some point, while riding my horse through a village and looking at chairs I didn’t have the time to sit in, I decided to take a shortcut. There’s this forest, Angelwood pass, that cuts a pretty narrow path through the mountains. You can either go completely around the range, which will probably take you a week or two, or you can walk through Angelwood valley, which is three to five days.”

“Sounds like a no-brainer.”

He picked up the mug and took sips between his words. “Would be, if not for snow. You see, the snow hadn’t yet melted, so if there had been an avalanche or somethin’ during winter, the mountains around the valley would’ve cradled the snow in place, making a wall that nobody’s getting through. No one I asked knew whether or not anything of the sort had happened, but I know it has done so exactly once in the few decades I been around there. Just to be safe, if people don’t know whether or not it’s blocked, I go around. If it’s blocked, I won’t know until about three days into the journey - in which case I’d have to turn around and take the other path, a minimum addition of a week to the journey - I didn’t bring the resources for that. But I was anxious to be done with this job, and I’d only ever heard of the valley getting clogged once ever, so I took it. Stupid, ain’t it? Wasn’t too long ago, and I can’t now ever imagine making a choice so reckless.”

“So you got stranded out there?”

“Would’a been easier if I did. No, when I saw that wall of snow too impossibly high to climb, I let out every swear word I knew, maybe invented a few new ones, and began trudgin’ back where I came. Like I told you, I didn’t have the resources for that, but I wasn’t ready to die. Did what I could, used as sparsely as possible, but I got down to empty with three day’s journey left to my destination. Don’t sound too long, but that’s more than enough time for things to go south. See, you’d think I’d be worried about runnin’ out of food or water, but I can survive long enough without it to get where I’m goin’, even eat my horse if need be. Most precious resource for me is bullets. Reason my work is so dangerous and well paying is there’s always monsters lurking around where people don’t go. I’m being paid to travel through their home, they ain’t happy about that. My gun’s the only thing that keeps me safe, so when I run out of ammunition, I’m in serious trouble. And I was, I swear I felt them stalkin’ me like they could smell my bein’ defenseless. Didn’t take long for one of ‘em to attack, out of a bush leaped a hywolf, claws out, teeth on all three of its heads gnashing and hungry. No chance with a dagger there. 

But I didn’t die then. You see- typically I take letters, but this time it was a long wooden box. It is strictly against the rules to open it, but… desperate times call for desperate measures, I thought maybe there was a chance it would help me. And by sheer miracle, I was right - I pulled out a great ornery sword bejeweled at the hilt with brilliant green emeralds, and without a second thought or breath swung the thing into the side of the beast. The sword must’ve been forged by a true expert, cause it cleaved its way all the way through that hywolf, and without a moment it was dead in front of me. So for the next three days, I had no choice but to keep using the thing to protect myself, it was the only way to get there safe.

Then I got to the destination, a small kingdom in the middle of nowhere, and washed the sword in a river before putting it back in the box. I was instructed by guards to hand it to the client himself. I realized then that this wasn’t any old noble or merchant - it was the king, although of a kingdom small enough to often be left out of maps, he was the most important man for miles. He opened the box, inspected the sword, and asked me why it was blunt. It wasn’t, still could have sliced clean through either of us, but this man had a keen eye for it. I told him the truth, that I was stranded out in the open and needed a weapon to get there in one piece.”

“I’m guessing he didn’t like that.” 

“Not one bit. Before I knew it, or had the chance to ask any questions, his two guards were grabbing me and took me to the river to have me drowned. Was awful. Gods, and so stupid. I should have done anything else. Shouldn’t have taken that job right before a vacation, taken that shortcut, packed so few bullets, told him that I opened his box… Now I’m in this shithole - no offence.”

“None taken. I understand why anyone would prefer to be alive.” I placed his tea on the table in front of him and took the seat opposite.

“So much left to do. Never got nowhere in life, just spent doing jobs here and there, saving up so I could… I don’t even know, it’s all a waste now. Can’t use any of what I collected. Wanted to settle down, find a job that let me rest, maybe make a few friends…” He took his little mug and continued drinking.

“Just a waste,” he said between sips.

“I’m really sorry to hear that. I get a lot of people here with regrets, more often than not that’s what I’m talking to visitors about. But you’ll let go of that, very soon I hope. Whatever happened in your life, it’s time to move forward, and that’s ok. Can’t change the past.”

His shoulders lowered a little bit and face became less tense. “Thanks, hope I can get all the rest I was working towards in life soon.”

I realized that he finished his cup, so I took it off the table and stood up. ”Do you want a refill of that?”

“Um, no, I’m good. I ought to get going soon.”

I notice a bit of hesitation in that sentence. “You alright? Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Well… I haven’t met many others on my trip here, but I’m getting the sense that people don’t really ask questions around here. It’s a lot as it is, I suppose.”

“Yeah. Do you have any questions?”

“Well… I guess, what are we doing here? What is either of us trying to get to?”

“Ah, well that’s a tough one. I don’t really know. My purpose is to serve travelers like you tea, and the travelers’ purpose is to get where they’re going. I don’t really have any more insight than you do.”

“So this really is just a place for me to take a break, huh?”

“Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Are you dead?”

“I don’t know. Really, I don’t. All my visitors are, but you already knew that.”

“Hm. That’s real odd, huh?”

“I suppose so.”

“Alright,” he stands up, floor creaking under his shifted weight as he prepares to depart. “Thank you, str-” suddenly he stops in his tracks, and his brow furrows in confusion.

“Is everything alright?” I ask.

“Uh-” he reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out a small green envelope. “I just remembered. I have a message. I didn’t- I… I think it’s for you. I don’t…”

He hands it to me as I walk up to him, both of us confused into silence. “Yeah, that’s for you,” he says. “I don’t… I don’t know. I should get going.”

“Alright, take care of yourself. The fog should be clearing, the sun’s finally peaking through.”

“Thank you for the tea.” He turns around, opens the door, and mutters to himself, “it’s like spring, again.”

As the door shuts, I open the envelope and take out a neatly folded piece of parchment. I don’t typically receive messages from any visitors, most certainly not of a nature as vague as this.

I unfold it, and it reads:

Hello V, I’ll be arriving in something like 20 days. Until then, just keep doing what you do. Save some ingredients, a quartz crystal or something, I’m probably going to want a Draft of Recall. From, Veiled One

Time moves forward 6 days.

[mollowosh]

V's Last Tea Shop | Day 0 (Actual Play)

This is the session 0 of a solo journaling ttrpg I'm doing! If you want the details of the game and how I'm playing it, that'll be here. The basics are that my character is running a Tea shop on the border of life and death. Each session, they have a conversation with a new visitor. The lore provided by the game is pretty vague, so I'm making most of it up. Lastly, I'm not planning ahead or substantially changing any session once it's written - I want this to be as improvised as I can make it. This session is much shorter, because I'm just setting up shop - literally.

My name is V. 

I run a tea shop between life and death. 

My shop is located beside a river in a mountain pass.

I have an affinity for nature and purpose.

My little tea shop looks like it has been used for a long, long time, although I’m not sure it actually has. The tables are a leafy green, scratches and splinters aging each plank, each with a story, most of them mundane. The floors creak with about every other step, a shelf behind the counter barren of supplies yet I always have whatever it is I need. There is a chair behind the counter, but I rarely sit there. Instead, on most days, I pick one of the about 10 total customer chairs (of which all have never been used concurrently) and gaze out at the river as nature turns throughout the forested mountains. It’s comfortable and easy to exist in my shop, there are few needs and few secrets around here, so I just sit, read, clean, and wait for travelers to visit. Whatever questions you have about their nature, reasons, where they came from, where they are going… The answer is I don’t know. I don’t have to know. My purpose is to serve tea. Everything else is incidental.

Time moves forward 3 days.

[mollowosh]

Dear [X]; Love [Y] (Story)

Dear [X], 

It’s all so strange and confusing without you here.

It was only yesterday when I was holding your hand and not worrying about a time when I’d have to let go.

On a stage bathed in spotlights, you were always somehow the brightest thing in the room.

Time will end, as will all things.

And once it does, we will finally reunite.

When I lost you, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t understand what was happening in my mind, so I decided I wanted to learn - I went to the library and read books about grief and learned a lot; for example, that the 5 stages of grief are largely a myth, and that there is no single common framework for how people experience grief. I learned that not just some, but a majority of those who lose loved ones report seeing them in dreams. I pored over letters and speeches of people talking about their loss, and learned the most common phrases people use to describe it - how they talk about infinity, how they can't sleep, how otherwise boring anecdotes become intensely laden with both sadness and happiness. I learned how the most objective and cold writers would break down, revealing a nervous wreck of superlatives and hyperboles, for there is no middle ground in death. 

I felt like I understood grief. I was able to predict and name every symptom and crushing blow I dealt with, I knew dozens of people over thousands of years who had experienced the same thing as me, I could predict how I would feel tomorrow, understand what every other person who has lost someone would say to me, and… and I learned that none of it helped me in any way. I learned that no matter how much I read, no matter how many nights I spent scouring books and reports, no matter how much I understood grief, none of it mattered. I had all the information I could possibly ask for, and was hopelessly and utterly lost. 

One common thread between all the stories of overcoming grief that I came across is that time heals wounds. It has been so long since I have last seen you, and I don’t feel any better. I feel stagnant, like you were the sole driving force of my life. I thought maybe understanding this thing on my shoulders would make me feel less alone, or tell me how to deal with it, or- I don’t know, something. But every time I sat down once again in the library, I just felt empty. And I don’t know what, or who, or why I am without you. I still don’t know anything.

A death-related tradition I read about that stuck with me is the simple practice of grieving individuals writing letters to their dead. Not notes about them like obituaries and such, I mean letters written specifically to the deceased, to read as though they were still alive. Though not a specific tradition or named cultural practice, this is something that people like me, across valleys and time, have done to deal with the loss of someone we hold dear. So, so many people have written these, and although I can’t read every last letter of the sort, I feel such a deep and terrible loss that it’s like I can sense them - ghosts of messages to the beyond that carry the hearts and tears of their authors like boats and their cargo sailing into the space between the moon and the horizon. I don’t know what they wrote, but to an extent I know what they felt while writing them. All of us are one, united in grief - although I’ve only lost you, it feels like I’ve lost a million other things. In a way, that million other things has been the combined tragedy of all the other letter writers, whose shoes I’ve now worn and pain I now understand. 

And I still feel alone, but they do too.

You meant everything to me, you still mean everything to me.

I will make my way back to you, I promise.

One eternity at a time.

Love, 

[Y]

… 

Dear [X],

I remember the first time I dreamed about you after your death.

It was essentially a fictional retelling of how the two of us met. I was the lead in a small production of a play with you in the audience, and I remember you were sitting in the corner, close to the door. I was an energetic, dominating presence onstage, the sort of lead where you can tell they were waiting their whole life for this moment, and somehow could also tell they were an expert in their craft. The audience of around 60 people was respectfully quiet as we performed, but you were somehow quieter, in an appreciative, patient way. I could imagine you taking notes with a pen and notepad if it weren't something that would attract attention. 

Your legs were crossed, hands on your lap, eyes protecting a mind constantly swimming with thoughts. I didn’t fall in love at first sight as many would assume, but as I glanced across the audience, making momentary eye contact with random theatergoers in random order, you held my attention for an imperceptible moment longer than the rest. I didn’t think much of it, but I remembered your face for no clear reason. It’s funny which kinds of things our dreaming minds deem important to keep realistic, and which they decide can drift into fantasy.

In reality, I never enter a stage without a paranoid amount of practice, but in this dream, I and the rest of the team were playing it fast and loose. Improvising here and there, forgetting lines and filling them in with our own - I usually get quite nervous before a performance, but at this moment I didn’t know such anxiety. It's like the play was the world, and everything else was intermission. The performance ended, the audience clapped, I bowed, and I woke up.

For a moment in my dreams, you are not only still there, but a blank slate with an unimaginable journey ahead.

Back in the real world, I remember the lead up to our first date - I spent so long in my closet and in front of the mirror choosing the right outfit, adjusting my shirt collar, doing my hair, and so on. Then, when I apprehensively arrived at the restaurant, I remember seeing you with impressively messy hair and an incorrectly knotted tie. Some may have interpreted it as careless or disrespectful, but I didn’t. Instead, that was when I realized it - you and I were cosmically different, and exactly the same.

We both shared a passion for performance, and when we took the stage together, it was like we perfectly balanced each other out. Your brashness and impulsive loudness perfectly counteracted my subdued, calm nature - I remember one time our friends joked that you were the id, and I was the superego. I’m not sure if that was true beyond lighthearted banter, though. You were arguably as mature as me but just decided that acting like it simply wasn’t for you. But one thing was true: together we were the ego, the wonderful sum of contradictory parts. And I finally understood how you felt on stage, how the great unknown was one of the greatest possible comforts, and how the bright residue of spotlights leftover in our retinas felt just like free fall. 

I remember the first time I saw you in real life.

It started as one of many nights spent alone, but not particularly lonely. I always try to support my local theater, and recently read that there were some new members of the production. Walking into that place is very comforting to me, the seats’ warm leather and stage’s warmer lighting like a beacon of consistent comfort in my life. I arrived late by regular theatergoer standards, so settled for a seat in the back corner, near the door. The moments before a play starts are always somewhat magical - though devoid of life, the set onstage sits idle, and all you can do is imagine exactly what each bit will be used for. An empty stage is potential energy in its most raw form. Eventually, the lights lowered, the audience clapped for the start of the play, and I crossed my legs in anticipation. 

It was a good story. If I’m being totally honest, I don’t remember it super well which I guess means it wasn’t amazing, but I had a good time. The main character was introduced in the second scene, and though I knew nothing about the story, I could immediately tell it was the main character by the way you played it. That sounds like a bad thing - all I mean to say is you were a dominating personality on stage, in all the ways a main character should be. As your eyes darted across the audience during an aside, I was one of the people you made momentary eye contact with. And maybe it was a trick of the mind, but I felt like we held each other’s eyes for slightly longer than everyone else. Your eyes were simultaneously focused and clearly having a lot of fun. 

I saw you after the play standing outside hanging out with some other audience members. I walked up and complimented you on your performance - I didn’t fall in love immediately, as one might assume, but your face stuck in my mind for no particular reason. I mean, I guess I thought you were attractive, but I thought that about lots of people. You just sort of effortlessly stood out in an industry where standing out is many peoples’ priority, like the one rose that you stop to smell. Then you thanked me and invited me to a local bar for a drink. I thought maybe you were saying you were interested in me, but I’d learn later that you were actually just bored and chose me at random. You didn’t overthink, always said life’s more fun that way. We became friends quite easily, I realized I was in love over the course of a couple of months but kept it quiet, out of the blue you revealed to me that you were also in love and asked for a date, and the rest is self-explanatory. 

It’s funny which kinds of things our memories deem important to keep realistic, and which things they decide can drift into fantasy.

You were nothing if not a walking contradiction, a distortion in space and time with terribly messy hair.

It was nice to see you again.

Love,

[Y]

… 

Dear [X],

A little while after I met you, when I knew I was in love but too afraid to approach you, I didn’t understand what was happening in my mind. Something had changed, my world was falling away at my feet and being replaced with a new one. I decided that I wanted to learn - I found a random library I had never been to, and sat down to read some books about love to try and comprehend this warm thing in my chest. And in that research, I learned two different theories about love.

The first states that we seek romantic partners due to an emptiness within our own lives. That if we were truly, actually happy, we wouldn't need another person to lean on. Basically, you wouldn’t need an “other half” if you yourself were whole. The second theory is a sort of opposite: that love, true love, is only possible once one fully loves themself. That it is only when someone fully accepts their own whole that they can properly recognize, receive, and reciprocate the love of another. I’m not sure I fully believe either of these. When I think of what my relationship to you was, I wouldn’t say I was necessarily incomplete or complete - I was infinitely flawed and infinitely aware of those flaws, as were you. I think we are far too complex for a simple designation of one or zero. Regardless, one bit of both ideas is definitely true: our relationship to love is inextricably linked with our relationship to ourselves.

You know, it occurs to me that I don’t actually have a very good definition of acceptance. It could be argued that I accepted it the next day, as after a sleepless night I rolled over to see an unimaginably large void where you usually slept beside me, the end of everything replaying for every instant you were not there - the stage empty, the spotlight burnt out. Is acceptance simply the knowledge that you are gone forever? I suppose acceptance isn’t simply knowledge - knowledge, at least by itself, is entirely cold and directionless. In order to make sense, knowledge needs context, and the simple literal fact of death is just as meaningless as my understanding of it. Something has to surround it, cradle it, give it direction and meaning. Something else has to enter the equation to turn it into acceptance.

I remember the first time I dreamed about you after I became okay. After a million nights of spiraling into sleep, one night I just drifted into it, and found myself standing upright in an empty void. Everything stretched into every direction, a plane of impossible dimensions filled with an impossible quantity of absence. And then suddenly, without appearing or approaching, you were there in front of me. I didn’t say anything, I’m not sure if it was my choice or the dream not letting me. You didn’t either, just wordlessly walked up to me and gave me a hug. It was the first dream after losing you in which I was consciously aware that you were not actually there. For the first time, I understood fully that you were just a figment of my imagination, understood the journey each of us had been on, and understood my purpose. And so it wasn’t you that hugged me and sobbed into my shoulder. It wasn’t you that, after many minutes, backed up with your hands on my shoulders, and looked bittersweetly into my eyes. It wasn’t you who took a deep breath, took another step back, and solemnly waved goodbye. It was not me who waved goodbye back. And when I woke up and rolled over in bed, you were not laying next to me, just as you hadn’t been for all of eternity. 

And I learned that although love is such a primitive and brutish force, it is perhaps the most complex thing in the world. And later, after you passed away, I learned that just as brutal is the aftermath of love’s departure.

Acceptance is not the knowledge that you are gone. Acceptance, at least for me, is the understanding that both love and loss are infinitely more nuanced than a simple designation of known or unknown. It’s not receiving the truth, it’s moving forward in spite of it - realizing that what we lose isn’t all the world has to offer. I think we, and every construct we build is just allergic to classification - to be is to feel, and to feel is to be absurdly, inconveniently complicated. So this’ll be the last letter I send to you. This isn’t to say I won’t be talking to you anymore, I definitely still have more to say, it’s just the last time I will communicate formally. I think I might be ready to move forward. You know, see what the world has to offer. I remember you telling me that - “though jumping may take effort and landing may be rough, there’s no feeling quite like free fall.” 

We will meet again, far from here, long from now. But at the moment, I think both of us want the world to continue revolving.

I love you with all my heart, I miss you with all my heart, I shall continue on with all my heart. You don’t have to worry about me anymore. 

We will end, as will all things. 

And when we do, time will finally resume.

Love,

[Y]

[mollowosh]

The Absolute You (Story)

(CanaryAnne_) Posted on 5/7/2023 

Hi all! I was wondering if I could have some other people look at this thing I stumbled upon, maybe figure it out. I truly, truly feel like I’m going crazy. So I went to Dresher University, and a while ago I was scrolling through their old social media posts out of boredom, and just a few years before my first semester there I found an obituary for a girl named Elodie Carter. I’ll go ahead and attach a part of that here.

It is with a heavy heart that we announce that, on 10/7/2015, Dresher University student Elodie Carter lost her life shortly after a car accident at the age of 20.  Elodie was a bright student and charismatic speaker according to all those fortunate enough to connect with her. The aspiring physicist’s contributions to Dresher’s PRISM society pushed forward the organization’s capacity and ambitions to great heights, and even at such a tragically short span her life will have a positive impact on many to come. Even in her last few hours at the hospital, she was thinking about the wellbeing of others, comforting friends and organizing where her belongings would be allocated. Elodie was a bright light on campus, and we will never forget her. In the wake of her tra...

Ok, so really sad, but pretty normal all things considered. But as I was looking at it I got this really weird, like, reverse-deja vu moment where I felt like I was forgetting something that I should know about, but couldn’t tell what. So I looked into it a little bit, and I found this news article that references someone of the same name, at Dresher, dying on the same day. But instead of a car crash report, it’s a totally different story about some kind of mugging, which I have absolutely no memory of. And I… can’t think of any explanation for this? Both of these documents are public, and I just can’t see this being a coincidence. I’ll attach a bit of the article below, but can you guys help me look into this?

Student shot and killed during mugging at Dresher University (Published 12/7/2015) This Wednesday, Dresher University junior Elodie Carter was fatally shot while walking home from a party. Campus police were called to the scene after two gunshots were heard outside the Erwin Residence Hall, where they found Carter’s deceased body with two deadly gunshot wounds and purse missing.  Security camera footage reveals that the incident occurred just as Carter entered a blind spot, however, a blue truck not known to belong to any Dresher student can be seen quickly exiting the area moments before authorities could arrive.  Peers who attended the party she was leaving testify that nothing seemed unusual about her behavior, only that one friend warned her to be careful while walking home alone. The local police department is continuing to search for any signs of a perpetrator, and is discouraging students from being out alone in any context.

(Str4ng3r) Replied on 5/7/2023 to (CanaryAnne_)

God fuckin damn casually dropping you got into Dresher. Jealousy aside, you’re right, this is really weird. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing off about either of these sources other than the fact that they contradict each other. I think it is technically possible that there were just two Elodie Carter’s at Dresher who died on the same day, but that just doesn’t sit right with me. Maybe this is just my conspiratorial side, but I feel like maybe this is some sort of cover-up and the media mixed up their stories.

(CanaryAnne_) Replied on 5/7/2023 to (Str4ng3r)

I guess that’s possible? It just seems so coincidental, like, besides the fact I can’t find anything they’d have to cover up (which I guess is kinda the point), wouldn’t anyone with the power to do that at least ensure that their super basic stories are… y’know, at least compatible?

Also my student loans are still KILLING me so don’t feel too jealous about not getting in.

(Str4ng3r) Replied on 5/7/2023 to (CanaryAnne_)

Alright this is officially fucked I found another account of her death, I looked through the account that posted her obituary and it still shows she is still following it (I guess they don’t delete accounts of ppl who’ve passed) and i chose a random person following her, scrolled down to around the time it happened, and there was nothing. But there was a post one year later commemorating her and-

AmberFoster (10/7/2016): It’s been a year since we lost Elodie. Walked to the park where we were on the night when she first said she was feeling strange, then she had a stroke, and just a day later she was gone. I don’t really know why I went back, it just made me feel awful. I guess on some level I feel like I owe it to her, I know a lot of people aren’t going to remember so I have to be there for her. Elly, if in some universe, in some way, you can read this, know that I’m only okay because of you.

This is crazy. And before anyone asks, no I’m not going to message them further that would be so weird.

(xpp0q) Replied on 6/7/2023 to (CanaryAnne_)

Alright, I started looking into it more, it doesn’t get any less impossible. I was looking at Dresher’s website and found one of their physics professors that’s been there a long time, figured if Elodie was a physics major then they would have crossed paths. I shot him an email asking if he ever taught her and if he knew of her passing, without mentioning the discrepancy we have here. He got back right away, this is the email and obv I censored both of our names.

Dear ████, Good evening to you too. Yes, I can confirm I taught Elodie in my Advanced Experimental Physics class around 2014. As it was a while back, I don’t remember a lot of the specifics, but I definitely recognize the name. I do have some emails coming from her that I won’t show you out of respect, but from what I can tell she was very involved with some of the deeper research happening on campus, and her suicide was very unexpected. Best of luck with whatever you’re looking for.  ████, PhD

I have no clue what to do with this. I asked him if he could show me proof or any email/document that it happened, and he said he had none but heard it by word of mouth.

I did some additional digging, and found the studies that the prof said she was working on. Well, sorta, I looked for them in the database and got results, but all of them were blacked out. I think they got intentionally expunged somehow. This sort of leans into the “government coverup” theory I guess, but still doesn’t really make sense. What research could she possibly have been doing that was secretive, yet known to a random professor, sensitive, yet released to the public at some point, made her dangerous enough to get killed, but not dangerous enough for her story to be written with any consistency, created all these messed up narratives, but not enough for anyone to notice until years later - it’s nonsense, I don’t know what to make of this. And that’s assuming it is a coverup at all, and we don’t know that. 

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 7/7/2023 to (CanaryAnne_)

Hey, what the hell is going on here? This isn’t funny.

(Str4ng3r) Replied on 7/7/2023 to (Elly_Carter94)

Fuck off troll

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 7/7/2023 to (Str4ng3r)

This account has been around for FIVE YEARS, dude. I read this forum. You can find posts of mine talking about Dresher and engineering advice really recently. What are you guys trying to do here?

(CanaryAnne_) Replied on 7/7/2023 to (Elly_Carter94)

You… Aren’t dead?

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 7/7/2023 to (Str4ng3r)

What do you think? I don’t know where all of these reports are coming from but they sure as hell aren’t about me. I had that professor, am still dating Amber, and have a job and everything now.

(CanaryAnne_) Replied on 7/7/2023 to (Elly_Carter94)

I’m really sorry you had to see us talk about you like this, but I mean… look at all of the different accounts we found, isn’t it reasonable that we thought that you were dead? None of us have found any evidence that these are fake, do you have any idea what this is?

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Str4ng3r)

I mean, no, I don’t know what they are. I’ve never seen these before. Sorry for my initial reaction, y'all aren’t doing anything wrong. You’re right, it is weird. I can tell you that my “involvement in research” was long enough ago that I can admit that I wasn’t actually super involved in it. My mom was the one actually in it, I just got a freebie internship that let me do accounting stuff for the researchers. I really wanted to be involved, but I just never got let in. There was only once I got any kind of action, there was someone missing that apparently was supposed to be there and I subbed in.

(xpp0q) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elly_Carter94)

What did you do when you got to work?

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (xpp0q)

I can’t remember most of it, but it was boring. I just had to stand in a specific place and press a button. I couldn’t even fully see the machine, but it was huge and underground. There actually was some kind of malfunction that day, a bunch of red lights and sirens told us that we had to leave like halfway through, and that was that.

By the way, I asked Amber to look through her posts for the one you guys found, and it is there but she doesn’t remember ever posting, nor would she have any reason to. I’m just as confused as all of you.

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 8/7/20██ to (Elly_Carter94)

Oh my god it worked, I actually have a connection. Ok, please listen to me. I’m not here to make jokes or anything like that. I might be able to explain but I don’t have any time. For you all it’s 2023 but right now it’s 2015. And it's two days until every other Elodie dies.

(Str4ng3r) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

What are you talking about? What the fuck do you mean it’s 2015?

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

Who are you??

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 8/7/20██ to (xpp0q)

I’m sorry, you’ll just have to trust me. I’m Elodie Carter. A different one. Your Elly didn’t get to be a larger part of the research program but I did. And I don’t have a lot of time, so I’m just going to have to be blunt: I’m not from your universe. The research we were doing was about investigating if parallel realities existed - or at least that’s what I was told. That was a lie, they were already certain of it. This whole time, they’ve actually been working making an “absolute timeline,” which would destroy all the others.

(CanaryAnne_) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

That’s… so we’re saying multiverse theory is correct?

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 8/7/20██ to (CanaryAnne_)

Doesn’t it make sense to what you’ve been seeing? A bunch of versions of the same person impossibly experiencing different things?

(xpp0q) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

Hold on, if all this is true, why is your universe wanting to destroy all of the others?

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 8/7/20██ to (xpp0q)

We don’t want to, we just discovered that we can, like you guys did. We realized that it's theoretically possible for a timeline to be made "absolute," as in turned into the one, true timeline which cancels out all the rest. And because we found out that it's possible, that meant anyone else could do it at any time. And the only way to prevent us from taking the blow is by being the first to do it.

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

What does this have to do with us? Like, specifically you and me?

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 8/7/20██ to (Elly_Carter94)

You guys were the first. Not to make your universe absolute, since obviously I’m here right now, but the first to make a person absolute. Something becoming absolute means that there only can exist one across all universes. Whatever accident happened in your lab on the 9th, it turned you into an absolute being, and as a result every other Elodie can't exist after that.

(xpp0q) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

So why and how are you here to tell us this right now?

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 8/7/20██ to (xpp0q)

I’ve gone under the radar using the other researchers’ equipment to try and warn all the others, I guess our timelines are slightly staggered meaning my now is your before. But more importantly, we need this business to stop. If we can coordinate everyone, maybe we can agree that NOBODY has to pursue an absolute timeline. If any of the universes does it, they’ll ensure their own survival, but cause the deaths of literal infinite others. Most universes are similar enough to have some form of the internet, so I’ve been trying to bridge them. And I think it’s working, since you guys are seeing posts from other timelines. Unfortunately, that’s also how I learned that I think it’s over for me soon.

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

Okay, that… Thank you. I mean really, thank you so much. I will try to continue what you have going here. I’m so, so sorry that it happened this way.

(CanaryAnne_) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

Yes, thank you. I don’t know how anyone is gonna believe us, but… We’ll try.

(Str4ng3r) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

Yeah, me too. It’s definitely crazy, but I think if your internet shit works even a little bit then we’ll start to amass more evidence.

(xpp0q) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

Same here. Is there anything else you want from us?

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 8/7/20██ to (xpp0q)

Just- Elodie, can you take care of Amber? I know it’s a different one and you’re doing it already, but I feel so awful having to leave her all alone. Just help her out. I don’t know what mine is going to do, but you can help yours. Will you do that?

(Elly_Carter94) Replied on 8/7/2023 to (Elo_Cart)

Of course. I promise I’ll take care of her, and I promise that yours will turn out alright. We can take it from here, your work is done. Go spend time with her. If you’re the same as me, then that’s probably all that’s on your mind right now.

(Elo_Cart) Replied on 9/7/20██ to (Elly_Carter94)

Ok. Thank you. Goodbye.

[mollowosh]

ANTERO CORPORATION RETURNING EMPLOYEE GUIDE (Story)

Item 1: Introduction

Hello! Welcome back to the Antero Corporation family. We’re proud to have you once again as a part of one of our Solvent Operations & Response Teams (SORTs). You are here because a location of interest has been identified, and your particular SORT has been selected by lottery. Please carefully review all procedures to ensure that you and nearby civilians remain safe. 

This particular manual is designed for returning Antero Corporation employees. You have been on the field before, this is not a mistake. These contents may jog your memory, but if not, simply re-learning material is acceptable.

Item 2: Calibration

You will shortly be introduced to your team of 2 to 4 other coworkers. Because you are a returning employee, you can be certain that this selection of people has worked well with you in the past. You may develop a rapport if you wish, but as a reminder, any knowledge you have of your team will not be preserved once your task is completed.

Soon after re-meeting your SORT, you will be transported to The Baseline Inclusion Zone to take part in multiple non-invasive normality fitness tests. 

CHRONOLOGY TEST

You will be provided with a series of events from your life and must place them in chronological order. You may not remember, but this information was willingly provided to us in your initial stage of recruitment.

APHANTASIA TEST

You will be asked to imagine a red apple, and rate the vividness of its image from 1 to 5 (a more thorough scale will be provided by the operator). 

PINK ELEPHANT TEST

A full description of this test will hinder results. When it begins, simply follow all instructions as quickly and accurately as possible.

Item 3: Entry

If you pass every test, you will be transported by your Team Research Overseer (TRO) to the location of interest with your team directly after. You will also be given your special operations suit, which should cover you completely and provide numerous tools to aid your journey. Assign one SORT member to perform an equipment check in correspondence with your TRO.

Civilians nearby should be cleared by a separate team by the time you arrive. If there are still people nearby, demand all to exit under guise of an applicable public threat, such as a gas leak, terrorist attack, or extreme weather event. You may use force if civilians are not compliant. Once the area is cleared, issue a request on behalf of the Bystander Clearance Team for a re-evaluation of memory and mental state.

Item 4: Action

Your goal is to document any abnormal properties of the location. You will do this by physically exploring the location while recording anything that happens, consistently communicating with your SORT to take note of any incongruencies. You do not need to take particular effort to record, as the equipment on your suit does so automatically. Your TRO cannot communicate during the expedition, but will remotely receive all incoming data from a separate location.

General notes:

Periodically split up and reconvene in order to trigger potential spatial or temporal desynchronization.

Disregard any and all information of prophetic nature.  All predicted events have been found to occur with or without intervention.

Periodically take note of the stopwatch visible in the bottom right of your goggles, and ensure it matches with other members.

Never cease communication with the rest of your SORT. In the event a member goes dark, do not spend more than an hour searching for them.

Do not attempt to fix any anomalies, even if you are certain you have found the source.

Do not use chalk, ropes, or other “breadcrumb” systems to navigate. They will lie.

If you feel as though objects or walls are moving when not observed, you are most likely correct.

If a member of your SORT becomes incapacitated or deceased, attempt to retrieve the body; if not viable, retrieve available equipment.

If your SORT cannot locate the exit due to spatial anomalies, collectively decide when you have reached an emergency scenario. You may all then vote as such on the provided receivers, and the Collateral Substance program will begin to monitor everyone’s nutrition levels. Once any member reaches a critical deficiency, the program will terminate a random member to be consumed. This will continue until escape is confirmed.

If a member’s time desyncs but they are still physically observable, ask them the calibration question: “Where do the warbler’s fly?” If they do not answer “just east of the range,” then terminate them with your Antero issued pistol before they have an opportunity to react.

If your assignment is a cave, return is unlikely. The mission remains mandatory. Thank you for your service.

Item 5: Cleanup

If the entire location is documented to the best of your team’s knowledge, exit using the same method of entry. Cross-check time devices outside the area with those in your equipment, and make one final observation around the exterior of the location. If inconsistencies are present, your SORT may be lost and must repeatedly re-enter and exit the location until incongruencies are no longer present. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to interact with any people outside of your SORT for as long as these anomalies remain. If multiple entries into the location of interest are ineffective, self-termination is the best option.

Once your SORT reports completion, you will be brought back to the Baseline Inclusion Zone for debriefing, where you will repeat normality fitness tests, return equipment and recordings to be analyzed by researchers, and have your memory partially erased to mitigate informational hazards. When you return home, any missed deadlines or other issues related to your absence will have been dealt with by management on your behalf. You will remember that you went on another expedition, but no other details.

Item 6: Conclusion

Thank you for joining Antero Corporation for another mission. Your work is important, and your sacrifice is recognized. Payment will be distributed by mail. If you wish to terminate your employment contract, you are free to do so at any time and for any reason after your mission is complete (including debriefing). Doing so during or shortly before your shift is strictly prohibited, and attempts to do so will not be tolerated.

[~~~~~~~~~~~~TRANSMISSION_ERROR~~~~~~~~~~~~]

(All SORT members are currently in different rooms of an underground train station.)

Bravo: Echo, are you there?

(Bravo scans across the main floor of the train station with a flashlight in silence.)

Bravo: …Okay. They’ve gone dark.

Sierra: I’ve been looking too, I don’t know where they could have gone. 

Delta: I think I saw them walking near the tunnel, I can try to follow. Bravo, can you check their vitals?

Bravo: I got it. Um, let’s see… 

(Bravo is silent for a moment.)

Delta: Everything alright?

Bravo: I… It’s not here. It lists me, Sierra, and Delta. That’s it. They aren’t here. They were here before when I did the equipment check.

Sierra: This fucking place...

Delta: Alright then, I’ll go where I saw Echo go. Keep an eye on my readings.

Bravo: Hold on, you really shouldn’t go on your own.

Delta: If it was an individualized pocket then we can’t retrieve them together.

Bravo: Yeah, but if it is a thing that traps you individually then you won't be able to get out even if you do find them. That’s too much of a gamble, I’m coming with you.

Delta: I guess you’re right. Come on.

Sierra: I’ll continue searching the second floor. Full disclosure, if you two go dark I am sitting here and waiting exactly one hour before getting the hell out of here.

Bravo: Fair enough.

Delta: You could lose your position.

Sierra: And what a tragedy that would be.

(Bravo and Delta meet at the mouth of the tunnel, and begin to walk down it.)

Bravo: Time is at 17:22:03.

Delta: Same here.

Sierra: Me too.

(Small bits of gravel are kicked up by each of the SORT members’ boots as they walk, skittering across the dark alley and train tracks.)

Sierra: Every electronic clock I can find has been unplugged.

Delta: That’s… really odd… Analog ones?

Sierra: There aren’t any, not on this floor. Guess these guys aren’t fans of ‘em.

Bravo: In all fairness, I can barely read normal clocks either.

Delta: I suppose there’s a chance- hey, Bravo, stop- 

(Incoherent glitching noises and overlapping audio comes out of Delta’s radio)

Sierra: Oh shit, everything okay?

Bravo: Del- Oh. What are you-

Delta: I’m still here, I’m still fine, where did you go?

Bravo: I haven’t moved, where are you right now?

Delta: I didn’t move either. I'm still in the tunnel. You’re nowhere in sight.

Bravo: Same for you.

Sierra: The vitals say you guys are still good. Did you just get separated?

Bravo: I… Suppose so… Okay, Delta, do you see anything other than just train tracks?

(Delta looks around for recognizable landmarks.)

Delta: There’s a newspaper on the ground here, it’s turned to a crossword puzzle. 

Bravo: Exact same here too. I think we’re in the same place, we just can’t see each other somehow.

Sierra: What do your guys’ timers say?

Bravo: 17:30:28.

Delta: Fuck. Mine is 17:18:11.

Sierra: And mine is the same as Bravo’s. 

Bravo: Let’s just both leave the tunnel.

Delta: Okay, I can- What do you mean? I don’t know?

Bravo: You don’t know what?

Delta: Is that a bad thing?

Bravo: What are you talking about?

Delta: Oh what the f- 

(A loud gunshot can be heard through Delta’s radio, and their body hitting the ground.)

Bravo: Delta? DELTA!?

Sierra: Get the fuck out of there, man!

(Bravo sprints out of the tunnel. Delta sprints out of another tunnel on the other side of the track, which they never entered. They meet in the center of the track.)

Bravo: Delta, are you okay? The fuck just happened, how are you over here?

Delta: What? I should be asking the same question to you! I thought you died.

Sierra: You two, I searched the rest of the station, there isn’t anything. Sort your shit out so we can leave.

Bravo: You… You were talking nonsense and… there was a loud… how did you get over there?

Delta: That’s the tunnel we went in. I also thought you got killed.

Sierra: Um… Delta, can we get a time synchronization test?

Delta: 17:19:24.

(Sierra and Bravo are taken aback, and stand in silence for a moment.)

Sierra: …Delta, where do the warbler’s fly?

Delta: Wh- What do you mean? I don’t know?

(All three are silent for a moment.)

Delta: Is that a bad thing?

(Bravo quickly pulls their pistol and aims it at Delta’s head.)

Delta: Oh what the f- 

(A loud gunshot can be heard through Delta’s radio, and their body hitting the ground. Bravo stands frozen for a moment, still clutching their gun.)

Sierra: Bravo, I don’t mean to be pushy, but we need to get out of here. Now. 

(Bravo is audibly shaken.)

Bravo: A-Alright, meet me in the lobby. 

Sierra: I think they’ll cut us some slack for leaving early. I’m assuming still no sign of Echo?

Bravo: Who?

Sierra: Echo, like where they went?

Bravo: There isn’t- You mean like another team member?

(Sierra pauses for a moment in confusion.)

Sierra: Yeah. Echo. You were looking for them.

Bravo: Uh…

Sierra: What time do you have?

Bravo: 17:04:12. What’s going on?

(Sierra doesn’t respond.)

Bravo: …What’s on yours?

(Only footsteps can be heard through Sierra’s radio.)

Bravo: Sierra? Are you there?

(The footsteps escalate to a sprint.)

Bravo: What are you doing?

(A door is heard opening and quickly shutting. Sierra’s communication system is manually shut off.)

[mollowosh]

Pouring Out of the Universe (Story)

Hello. As I write this, I reside on an intersystem floater called the C-0D4 housing roughly 120 people, a full hundred light years away from the nearest other celestial body. We exist between what little remains, at the universe’s last breath, as entropy takes its stead. It was, I think, in my fourth year of education that I learned how different the concept of “home” used to look for us. We were confined by gravity to little marbles, confined to the orbits of stars, confined to whatever resources were present on the plant before us. Where we began, one such marble named Earth, just happened to have all of the right tools for a young humanity to pick itself up and make itself at home. But eventually we found ourselves wanting and wasting things beyond what our quaint planet made for us, so we started to reach into the stars - we set foot on every last marble in the jar, perfected light-speed travel, we killed every part of ourselves bound to the sedentary and flew through reality like kites with cut strings.

It was in my fifth year of education that I learned about how, in the time when humans were trapped to Earth, they feared that perhaps there was no other life out in the universe. Looking back, with our species having touched every star and finding ourselves indeed the only ones around, I wonder why they were so worried, why it mattered to them at all. Perhaps it was because they lived in an era where annihilation was a constant possibility, that if come true would forever excise the great clockwork of life from the cosmos, the only thing ever like it to ever be.

The great dark looms just outside the C-0D4, separated by a thin pane of glass, barren of light. The whole of the universe is simply a battle of absence and presence, is it not? Well, a battle that’s rigged from the start - the great empty now spreads in a way life and light never have, most planets by now swallowed by their stars, those stars collapsed into themselves, even black holes evaporated into stillness. We are in the end times, a moment where energy and light folds in on itself and settles into rubble. 

Life on the C-0D4 is minimal and dull in keeping with the void that greets us outside. However, contrary to the typical purpose of a floater, we are actually moving. If you press your ear to the cold metal at the back of the ship, you can faintly hear the hum of engines that haven't before been used in my lifetime pushing us along a new journey. The engines sound, funnily enough, like recordings of natural wind on Earth, a sound I have never experienced firsthand. Early humans would probably be unimpressed with us, visions and hopes for all-powerful technology met with… this. The lights are dim and straining, the walls are cold to the touch, the meals are small - in a past life we had that grand machinery, but all of it took energy to run, and we simply cannot waste anymore. Everything must be perfectly kept to ensure passage all the way to The Terminal. 

The Terminal is simultaneously a complicated and simple thing to explain. All the way back to some of humanity’s earliest eras, we already knew that the universe was destined to end in coldness. It is simply the way of all things - as energy affects the world around it, it spreads out, and any force made to re-condense it can only be driven by more energy, until everything is flat and still. Our end is not a twist, betrayal, accident, or even a tragedy - only the way things must be. By my era, dubbed the “Preservation Age,” almost all scientific resources were put into reversing this - perhaps we could facilitate another big bang, or discover deep within some well of physics a method to turn energy back from its sedentary state, some even looked into a way to rewind time to the beginning, to start again - none of it amounted to anything. There is no avoiding the end of this story, just slowing it down. 

But then, eventually, we made a breakthrough. Just one. From our many eons researching the end, we developed extensive technologies to track and map the movement of energy all throughout the universe, and just a few hundred years ago spotted a potential anomaly: roughly 400 light years away, energy is vanishing. A single spot of indeterminate size where energy, light, and matter enter but don’t emerge. Not spreading out or being used, but disappearing altogether - because everything is far and few between, it’s a very small and slight disappearance, but most certainly there. It’s not a black hole, it’s not hungry nor destructive, merely a place where things go away. We called it The Terminal.

It goes without saying that this is the only anomaly of its kind we’ve ever found. In an ocean of cold determinism, one spot of complete inscrutability. It looks, on diagrams, like a drain in a bathtub of light. 

That’s about where the science ends; everything else is speculation. Imagine us, so desperate and tired from being confronted by the end of everything day in and day out, suddenly faced with a possibility of escape. The celebration was quiet, as all things are in this time, but everyone on the C-0D4 regarded this as something vast. There are two primary trains of thought - first, perhaps The Terminal could be explained as some kind of path to another universe, a one-way entrance that populates the next place with whatever it collects. Second, and much less optimistically, it might be that the sink visible around The Terminal absorbs because it is a vacuum that’s equalizing with the space around it, a mere pocket of emptiness that by its nature draws in anything it comes by. If true, and we enter, that vacuum could rip apart our vessel. In essence, The Terminal is most likely a hole of sorts to another place; whether its nature is due to that place being more alive or more dead is impossible to know. 

So it’s a gamble, then. I don’t really know what I believe, but as I go about my life stuck on the C-0D4, left only to contemplate my existence as a bacteria in the gut of a dying organism, I can’t help but find this vision of somewhere new extremely compelling. There is no noise, but the noises we make. There is no light, other than what shines from us. The sky is empty, waiting for something else, and I think in a way humanity is the same. 

We’ll be arriving soon, in just a few years. And one way or another, this story on the C-0D4 will come to an end. Perhaps our drawn out existence here at the end of the universe will itself be cut short, which really wouldn’t be so bad. Or perhaps, if we’re lucky, we’ll find ourselves with new winds to sail to and new marbles to overturn. Maybe there will even be others already there to greet us when we land. That would be nice.