Argus
patreon
The Daily Grind - Chapter 152
🕑 Added 2021-06-25 10:55:51 +0000 UTCOkay, yes, I know we left on a cliffhanger. But I needed to take it a little easy this week, so here's something that's not exactly plot.
_____
“We were all in it together, though. Every stranger you ever met, they were fighting the very same fight you were. Of course, you didn't talk about it with them, but all of us saw that terror, the terror any mortal person has. That terror wasn't natural. No other creature in the universe woke up every morning knowing it was guaranteed to die one day. Just us. Nobody should have to live with that. It's too much, it isn't right. No one ever should have had to bear it.” - Jason Durabo, 17776 -
Order of Endless Rooms, Operations Manual, Section 4 Part 2 (Infomorphs, Overview and Broad Tactical Options)
In light of recent events and ongoing research, this entry has been updated and is considered mandatory reading.
Infomorph is the broad term used to refer to any non-corporeal life form that exists as a self-perpetuating thought or concept. This is left vague, and that is mostly because our understanding of infomorphs in general is vague as well.
As our exposure to new forms of infomorph grows, it becomes important to recognize that our origin point for understanding them - those that come from Officium Mundi - are not baseline. They represent their own unique methods of creation and interaction, as all infomorphs do, and we cannot count on the things we have learned from our friends to apply across the board.
There are, however, certain traits that infomorphs have been shown to share:
First, they do not exist independent from information. An infomorph of any variety requires, essentially, a ‘place to live’. Whether that is processing time on a living mind, within stored information, or tethered to a broader concept, infomorphs cannot sustain themselves outside of a safe environment any more than a human can sustain themselves while dunked in lava.
Second, infomorphs come in several varieties. A list of those varieties appears below, all of them with unique capabilities and countermeasures.
Third, infomorphs do not follow the same rules for personhood that a physical entity does. An infomorph could be created as an intelligent solution to a single problem, and never grow beyond that, completing its task and then silently fading away. Or, an infomorph could be created as a fully formed person. Or, more commonly, as a non-person that grows into a thinking, feeling creature through repeated peaceful contact.
Fourth, humans (and most other life that has membership in the Order) have no natural defense against the majority of common infomorph assaults.
A list of known infomorphs and potential countermeasures for them is as follows:
Assignments.
Origin : Officium Mundi.
Life Cycle : Non-person at creation, either grows with contact or fades away over time (See Section 4 Part 2-C, Curious, for a *major exception*)
Habitat : Living minds
Diet : Tethered actions and thoughts, memories.
Description : Assignments were the earliest discovered infomorphs, and the change in their designation was only recent. An assignment is created by shaping a directive, and is then pushed into a single target mind, where it influences the behavior of the target toward the directive. A directive is a simplified instruction, usually best formatted as ‘don’t do X’.
Non-person Assignments do not spread to other individuals, but empersoned Assignments can with mutual consent. Note that ‘consent’ on the part of the mind in this case simply refers to ‘thinking about the infomorph’.
An Assignment is not stealthy. A mind that has one operating within it may not be aware of the Assignment as an entity, but is entirely aware of the artificial nature of the compulsion.
An Assignment is capable of damaging or killing a wide variety of other infomorphs, especially if well fed. Long lived Assignments can also physically manifest bodies, or enter dreams.
Countermeasures : The main issue with a hostile Assignment is managing the compulsion. In a situation where no friendly infomorph is available to assist, and you are not in pressing danger, the best option is starvation. Avoid other infomorphs and avoid triggering the compulsion for around a month, and a young Assignment will die off without issue. If it is an option, Assignments are vulnerable to each other, and seeking help from one of the Assignments within the Order is much faster. That said, if you have the time and inclination, making contact with an Assignment living in your mind, while it requires training and practice, is a good way to speed their path to personhood and potentially find a new friend or ally. So far, no Assignments have been ‘born’ hostile or angry.
Cover Ups.
Origin : Officium Mundi. (Dungeons in general)
Life Cycle : Does not appear to grow to personhood or change at all from creation.
Habitat : Physical space (Investigation ongoing)
Diet : Memories
Description : A Cover Up is a memeplex tethered to a physical space that gradually collects the memories of people outside the space of the people inside the space. These memories are digested over time, but can be released if the Cover Up is damaged or killed.
Clarification; if you are within a Cover Up, over time, people outside its domain will forget you.
A Cover Up is, as far as can be determined, the primary way by which all dungeons reduce the odds of being noticed by large numbers of people. Almost every dungeon has at least one Cover Up operating within its boundaries, making it likely that anyone who dies or becomes trapped within a dungeon will have no help coming for them in the long run.
Some varieties of Cover Ups, especially ones stationed around entrances, also seem to specifically collect concern or anxiety of those thinking about delvers on the outside, leading to a lack of early response to those lost.
Countermeasures : As with many infomorphs, Cover Ups are vulnerable to assault from empersoned Assignments. But if you are an Assignment, be aware, Cover Ups are metaphysically ‘large’, and can damage core parts of your personality. For physical delvers, if your backup is also within a dungeon, a Cover Up isn’t a problem. It is worth knowing that Cover Ups also cannot influence physical records, only the degree to which people remember or care about them. So, leaving physical evidence outside a dungeon is a potential workaround.
Factals.
Origin : Akashic Sewer
Life Cycle : Non-person, no changes observed
Habitat : A single point of information
Diet : Unknown. Initial observation suggests they are not eating the information itself. Potentially their diet is perception. Lack of observation in progress to determine.
Description : Factals appear physically as a visual distortion, roughly beetle shaped, around physical records of a single fact. Usually a name, date, or address.
So long as a Factal is attached to a piece of information, it obscures it from all mundane and most arcane methods of observation. This means they exist simultaneously in multiple spaces where that information would be recorded. As a Factal grows, it spreads geographically to more and more copies of the information they obscure, until they have covered them all. Estimates show that it would take roughly three months for a Factal to grow to cover Earth’s surface.
On their own, Factals are a nuisance. But paired with a Cover Up or other form of antimeme, they can make it next to impossible for unequipped people to uncover lost information.
It would appear that only the Akashic Sewer can create Factals; no outside method to recreate one has succeeded.
Countermeasures : Factals die if the information they are covering is destroyed, but this largely defeats the purpose of killing them. They are incredibly vulnerable to other infomorphs. Also, they seem to struggle to spread to arcanely created variants of their fact. For example, if a Factal is attached to a digital file obscuring the author’s name, and you run the Officium Mundi program that tells you the name of a file’s creator, the Factal will take upwards of an hour to obscure the new piece of information.
Authorities.
Origin : Status Quo artifact
Life Cycle : Unknown
Habitat : Known to be within a physical life form. Suspected to be tied to organizational recognition/identity of that life.
Diet : Actions exercising organizational authority (testing in progress to determine if authority must be used to be fed upon)
Description : Authorities were discovered when utilized by the organization Status Quo in a hostile context. Recent experimentation has shown that the artifact that created the Authorities is still active, and growing more.
An Authority is perhaps the most physical infomorph we’ve encountered so far, being created with a physical body which they can demanifest, as opposed to the other way around. All of them encountered have been green; this does not appear to be indicative of anything in particular.
An Authority appears to form a symbiosis with their host, and can create physical phenomena based off the conceptual tasks or rights the host has the organizational authority to preform. It is unclear if the size or abstract ‘strength’ of the organization dictates how powerful an Authority can be.
So far, communication has not succeeded with an Authority, but experimentation is ongoing. At this time, Authorities are not available for members of the Order to bond with, but there is a priority based waiting list. Please contact Reed or Harvey to sign up.
Countermeasures : Authorities are physical creatures, and can be affected by physical forces. They do not appear to influence behavior or thought in any way. Authorities are also susceptible to the death or incapacitation of their host. However, beyond that, they have shown unnaturally high strength and durability. Hopefully, countermeasures to Authorities will be irrelevant going forward.
Summary :
Infomorph taxonomy appears to be divided into creatures that live within minds, or within information, and from there, divided again between destructive feeding on information (including memories) or passive tapping.
All infomorphs are to be treated with caution until a mutual relationship can be formed. While physical life forms cannot easily damage an infomorph, the reverse is *not true*, and without taking the time to ensure safe interactions, there is a real risk of loss.
At this point, the creation of Assignments using the purple orbs secured from Officium Mundi is under consideration. Please do not attempt this without careful consultation, and without reading both Part 2, Section 5, (Creation of Life) and Part 4, Section 2-C (Curious) closely.
For further notes regarding tactics for overcoming antimemetics, see Section 2, Part 7 (Antimemetics Are Real And They Can Hurt You)
_____
Blue orb absorption lessons.
This Wednesday, 4 pm, basement three
Tear ticket to indicate interest
-Flyer on lobby bulletin board, posted by Alex W. One ticket remaining, several tickets removed with fang punctures.-
_____
“What is this for? A/W”
“It’s a Research thing”
“dont blame this on us, its from construction for something - reed”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“But what’s it for??? Bill wants to know”
“Guys am I allowed past or not? I have work to do…”
-Handwritten notes on piece of printer paper tacked to wall over a line of red electrical tape running across the floor. Multiple authors-
_____
Response Daily Log / Notes
June 3rd, 2021
Calls Taken : 231
Calls Responded To : 110
Responding Breakdown : 17 non-issues, 41 emergency transport, 2 home invasions, 3 assaults, 2 domestic violence, 1 S&R, 10 mental health crisis, 20 assistance calls (CSFD), 7 prank calls, 7 non-emergency aid.
Response Teams Active : 4 official, 3 provisional
Response Team Injuries : 1 minor
General Note : A large number of calls today from teenagers asking if we were real. The majority of those calls ended in asking for us to teleport to them. Requests denied, obviously.
General Note : Majority of calls are local, but not all of them, leading to bad distribution of times. We need more members on call for small things, even if they’re not part of full teams.
Personnel Note : Of fourteen recent recruits, we are down to eight remaining after another three quit today. Training programs are working as intended to cull overly aggressive aspirants.
Personnel Note : For impressive performance under stressful situations, we should acknowledge provisional team 3 and formalize them as a Response unit. Add Jake K. and Maria G. to bring their unit to full rotational strength. Designate Ann M. as Knight-In-Command, and Spire-Cast-Behind as Knight. Good job, all of you.
Event Note : Drone deployment for search and rescue was used to find a lost child. Deployment was successful, but time consuming and rough. Drone operators aren’t used to working together, we need a specific training plan for exactly this situation.
Event Note : First case of a response unit taking fire today. 9mm from a pissed off boyfriend. Team stayed calm and situation was resolved nonviolently. Thank Christ for the shield bracers.
Resource Request : More shield bracers.
Event Note : The CSFD is calling us for support on things they don’t need support on. Better safe than sorry, from their perspective, but they’re treating us like bonus cops on scene, and it’s a problem. The CSPD has also explicitly noticed us because of this. As of today, I suspect confrontation is going to happen within a week.
General / Security Note : Maria Schumer, representative for Washington organization Less Cops More Care, contacted us regarding expanding operations to the Seattle area. She did not use the emergency number, and I do not know how she got my email. Regardless, her offer lays out a plan of rapidly replacing city police via community recruitment and donation funding. Unsure if the numbers stack up, CC Karen to check into that.
Resource Request : We need space, and more mental health specialists, for when we need to extract people from traumatic situations. Domestic abuse, violent assault, and also mental breaks. We need a space for people to be kept safe, from themselves if needed, and we need people who can help with that. Especially important for people who dont trust / cant afford hospital care. (Valid concern for anyone facing suicidality; hospital observation rooms are shit). I know this is another massive cost, on top of what we’re already looking at, but this matters.
Event Note : Teenager attempted to use us for a swatting prank. Didn’t work. Policy of teleporting nearby but not exactly on target is working as planned. Good job keeping cool, everyone.
Daily Summary : We need more people. We need better training programs. We should considered creating local chapters. We should also consider going public, and pushing for legitimacy. Same request as always. Good work today.
-Harvey Allison-
_____
“Machine currently accepts only one dollar gold coins, or loonies.”
-Handwritten note on vending machine. Author unknown-
_____
To : Deputy Director Duchene (c_duchene@fbi3.gov)
From : DeKay (liVi24Aax4@yesmail.temp)
CC : Office of Insider Threats, Department of Information Technology
Subject : Case Update - OOER
The Order has continued to expand their operations, though not outside of what has already been decided is acceptable. They are almost insultingly up front on what they consider to be counterintelligence operations, and in my opinion, they lack the capacity to hide any larger plans that haven’t already been openly discussed.
Their response program is worrying, because it is showing itself to be effective. What was initially thought to be their group play acting at being heroes is turning out to be a prototype of a potential large scale replacement of local law enforcement groups. Their report logs are attached, for review and assessment of if this represents a disruption beyond what is acceptable.
Their funding appears to be coming from a renewable supply of precious metals. I’ve consulted with the white collar department, and they say that it shouldn’t be enough to flood the market yet, but that’s a big yet. Debt requests we be allowed to take a cut of the resources. I request you say no
On that note, I would like to remind everyone again that non-human, non-physical creatures do exist, and can hurt us, and that the analysts that are supposed to be looking into this have once again stopped returning my emails. If this keeps happening, I’m going to let Debt eat their credit scores as a warning.
As for my updated assessment of the situation as a whole; things are going to get out of hand quickly. The Order is, unintentionally, creating a culture that doesn’t respect normal power structures, and has the firepower to back that up. I doubt they would initiate violence, and I don’t think we need to worry about them taking terrorist actions at present, but their plans are going to cause disruptions. Those disruptions could lead to loss of American life and property, and should be critically looked into. Files are attached for the insider office to look over.
Recommendation is to use soft pressures to destabilize and break up the organization over the next year or two. Evidence shows that direct confrontation doesn’t work, and they’re only getting tougher as time goes on.
Personally, I would like to request a raise. I’ve put in more field work here than I have in the last six years working white collar crimes. I’m a desk agent, not a spy. It’s already enough of an effort to make sure they can’t read my emails.
Debt agrees with me about the raise.
-DeKay-
_____
To : JP (jamesbondexpy@ooer.mail)
From : Karen Ward (k_ward@ooer.mail)
Subject : DeKay
Your new girlfriend is suggesting that the Order be broken up to her bosses, and thinks we’re all idiots. Be aware of that.
Also, unless she’s putting substantial effort into a double bluff, the organic program that’s feeding us her communications has gone completely undetected.
Still no mention from her of the skulljacks. She must know by now, but I think even she understands that’s too much power for a government to have without safeguards.
I find myself amused that this woman can practically live with us for months, and still think that the culture the Order curates is an accident. James is many things, but lacking in vision is not one of them, and his efforts to imbue our membership with his anarchist ideals is startlingly effective. More so, I admit, than I initially expected to be possible. Small things add up, it seems.
I won’t take too much of your time with this tangent, but you’ve known James longer than I have. From before ‘all this’, if I understand correctly. Is there anything in his ideology that’s going to be a problem for us? Already I can see that the lack of focus on structured leadership and the over reliance on technology could be issues, but aside from those, are there hidden parts to his way of thinking?
It is already apparent that the man has a disdain for power structures without specific and useful purposes, and that he is unwilling to use violence to solve problems when creation serves the same goal. My research shows this is typical of modern day anarchist movements, which I admit, was a shock to find. Perhaps I am too used to hearing the word as an insult and not as having true meaning.
Regardless, I won’t take more of your time. This email is to inform you that now might be a good time to consider severing our arrangement with the FBI, or to go over DeKay’s head and preempt her recommendations. I leave that chose to yourself and Mr. Marsali.
Regards
Karen Ward.
_____
To : Karen Ward (k_ward@ooer.mail)
From : JP (jamesbondexpy@ooer.mail)
Subject : RE:DeKay
Yup.
Sent from my iPhone.
_____
“WET WOOD. DO NOT TOUCH. PLEASE, FUCK, DO NOT TOUCH.”
-Sign in basement three living quarters, author unknown-
_____
Order of Endless Rooms, Operations Manual, Section 2 Part 8-2 (Extranormal Power Overview, Soft Caps and Limits)
At present, the Order has access to extranormal powers from three different sources (pending more). The broad overview of those has been discussed already, and more details on specific sources will be gone into in their own sections. This section is primarily to inform delvers about the powers that are actual long term choices.
First, the Officium Mundi sourced powers. Both blue and orange orbs have long term or permanent effects that have limits on them.
For blue orbs, only a limited number can be absorbed at a time, and after absorbing an orb, it cannot be removed except by running out the number of charges. Usually, this is only a matter of time; a less useful power or one with no clear application can be burned through over the course of under a month, and replaced. Also, some hidden metric allows for growth in the number of simultaneous orbs absorbed, allowing delvers to circumvent any hard caps from bad luck.
The main concern here is time, and the toll on the body that overusing blue powers takes. Burst blood vessels and muscle pain, usually, but medical experts advise that further overuse could cause heart attacks or organ failure. Do not burn yourself out trying to get to a blue power you like more.
Orange jobs are a much harder cap. Absorbing an orange orb is a permanent commitment, with no way to remove it once taken, and with so far only one slot per delver. Check the documentation carefully, and if you plan to be a test subject for a new orb, be aware that the roll of the dice is a permanent commitment, even though there is no (known) downside.
The second source is the Akashic Sewer. Skill books are incredibly valuable and rapidly push us beyond human normal in terms of core abilities. However, every additional rank in a given lesson becomes harder and harder to achieve. And if you have activated multiple skill books, all of your lessons will grow at a greater rate, meaning that you will soon come to require masters level courses or independent novel research to advance further, which is not always feasible.
Skill books can be duplicated, and going forward, sets of five will be our standard. The upside is more shared power. The downside is that the knowledge required to progress a lesson must be learned by every delver who has read a copied book (from here on referred to as a ‘class’). The reason we do not duplicate books further is that the ability for a class to advance together stalls out almost immediately at over twenty people, and becomes a scheduling issue at only eight. Five gives room for leeway, while still encouraging members of the Order to work together.
Finally, the equipment liberated from Status Quo. Most of this has been duplicated in some way, with original pieces in operational use. There are two limits in place, one for each category.
For freshly duplicated pieces, they often simply do not have the needed abilities to be useful. They require a certain number of activations before new abilities unlock, which can take a very long time to grow a piece into something viable for field work.
This leads to the second consideration; time. Abilities are on fairly substantial cooldowns, and only a finite number of charges can be banked at any one time.
Original pieces have lower cooldowns, and more available charges than duplicated pieces. However duplicated pieces have far, *far* lower requirements for advancement, and if development continues on a steady path, will eventually have cooldowns measured in minutes, not hours. This process will take years of constant methodical use, however.
Be aware. As members of the Order, and as delvers in particular, you may be exposed to choices that do not seem like choices at the time. The powers we take on are valuable beyond anything known on Earth, but they are often permanent additions to our selves that we cannot undo.
So far, no single power has had a negative impact on anyone. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a certain amount of regret at choosing to roll the dice and getting something that seems pointless. Testing the unknown is always valuable, and for those that do, their explorations are critical. But as we learn more, we can offer real *choices* to each other, based on information and plans for a long and bountiful future. And we should take advantage of that.
We all stand on each other’s shoulders.
_____
“Explain Movies to Camracondas Night”
Every other Friday, community room, beanbag seating. Evenings.
Bring some snacks to share, popcorn available.
--5/28 - The Mummy--
6/11 - The Thomas Crown Affair
6/25 - Coco
7/9 - The Princess Bride
-Flyer on lobby bulletin board, posted by Knife-In-Fangs-
_____
“This concludes the Antimemetics briefing”
-Last (And only) slide in a PowerPoint presentation left on in the briefing room-
_____
Order of Endless Rooms, Research Division Records
Abstract and Summary of Cancer Removal Orb, Test Run 3
Abstract : It is incredibly useful, when working with magic, to know up front that what we are testing does something. Whether or not it works is not in question. The question is, what exactly does it do, does it differ from person to person, and can it do what we want it to in the worst of circumstances.
This round of experiments seeks to test the definition of ‘cancer’ as used by Orb P-29. With assistance in finding subjects for clinical trials from Dr. Nikita and the radiology department of Providence Hospital, twenty two individuals were selected to receive treatment. Normally, a control group would be designated to receive a placebo. That isn’t exactly an option here, nor is it what we are testing for. Again, efficacy is not in question, only limits and definitions. So, ten subjects currently suffer from stage one skin cancer, while the other ten all have no diagnosed malignant tumors, but do have benign melanoma. Two additional subjects possess both benign and malignant cancer cells.
Trials will take place with patients under close observation during activation.
Due to the one year period between activations, the full scope of this trial will take time to evaluate, but initial results will give us a window into how far we can rely on the orbs to do our job for us.
Summary of Results :
Results for subjects with malignant cells was immediate and visible. As has been noted in previous tests, matter is seemingly removed from reality altogether, with flesh and blood vessels repairing themselves around the damage, but not filling the missing space immediately. (Concerns about this have been brought up in both previous tests regarding long term health, and do require further study. Patients in this trial do not appear to be at risk, but will stay under infrequent observation for the next several years.)
Results for subjects with benign growths were negative. Subject weights also remained entirely unchanged even when using the orb (exception, one patient shifted weight which caused unreliable results). This points to a complete lack of triggering of the effect.
It is still unknown at what threshold Orb P-29 designates a growth as ‘cancer’, but this does highlight at least that our next round of tests should be to determine that fact. The reality that there is no shortage of willing test subjects is a sad truth.
The final group, which was more difficult to find local participants for, experienced loss of mass in both benign and malignant cells. Again, further testing is required and we may need to cast a more public net to find subjects of the right category, but Dr. Nikita’s working hypothesis is that once a specific cancer is targeted, it is destroyed thoroughly. If this can be proven as true, then it is a best case scenario in terms of actually eliminating the cancer entirely and not simply putting a patient into remission.
Even still, this test does indicate that Orb P-29 is operating with a real world heuristic on the nature of what cancer is, and what it means to remove one.
Concerns :
There is no easy way to test to see exactly when the effect triggers on a subject. Metastasis obviously needs to be present and have reached a certain threshold, but the actual limits of that threshold are unknown, and without large scale testing and access to practical time dilation, there is no feasible way to understand the limits.
Trigger conditions do not map to accepted medical labeling in regards to the mass required before a growth is labeled a tumor. Either the effect is not using common medical definitions, or it is affecting undetected cancer within each subject.
The one year cooldown timer has not been confirmed on its operation, and will not be until at least two years from present testing.
Attachments :
Body mass before/after (Chart)
Patient medical files (Personal information redacted)
_____
“Locked Away
Voiceless Speak
Finite Structure
Depthless Hate
Outside Disturbance
and you are there for me”
-Camraconda poetry, carved into underside of dining room table by Frequency-Of-Sunlight, currently undetected.-
_____
Armory Inventory Report
Note : Due to increasing demands on replicator resources, armory packages have been restructured and are now in limited availability. Until further sources of mana coffee can be secured, Knights should not request more than one loadout per month.
Note : Skills are written in simplified form. Full details available on request. Skills are compatible with available equipment, even when esoteric.
Note : Armory packages only list dungeontech being copied for personal use, and do not include issued equipment for the response or delver teams. Skulljack wifi braids are available without making an armory request.
Introductory Package :
Skills : Quarterstaff, Kickboxing, CPR, Running, Driving, French Mycology (Incidental), Baseball Statistics (Incidental), Lens Fabrication (Incidental)
Physical Upgrades : Immunity Response Improvement, Short Term Memory Improvement
Emotional Resonance : Courage (Optional)
Other : Status Quo Shield Bracer
Delver Package :
Skills : Camping, Packing, Investigation, Animal Husbandry, Crossbow, Handgun, Acrobatics (2), Beatles Lyrics (Incidental), Impressionist Painting (Incidental), Statistics (Incidental), Ducks (Incidental)
Physical Upgrades : Throw Speed, Ligament Tensile Strength, Blood Production, Impact Absorption
Emotional Resonance : Calm, Surprise
Other : Telepad (1), Blue Orb - Medical Attention (Absorb for 23x Refine Liquid)
Rogue Package (In development) :
Skills : Languages (2, Spanish, German (Outdated)), Handgun, Investigation, Etiquette (5), Cookware Fabrication (Incidental), Cartography (Incidental)
Physical Upgrades : Skin Contact Electrical Discharge, Vocal Precision
Wanted : More languages, more perception enhancers
Response Package (In development) :
Skills : First Aid (2), Trauma Response, Language - Spanish, Judo, Ducks (Incidental), Cookie Recipe (Incidental)
Physical Upgrades : Impact Absorption, Lift Capacity, Bone Durability
Emotional Resonance : Patience (Incidental)
Other : Status Quo Shield Bracer (backup). A full team may request an Akashic Sewer book be duplicated for their unit, but only once due to space constraints, and pending availability.
Wanted : Persuasion, therapy, or other forms of deescelation ability. Durability based purples.
_____
Momers (She/Her/Witch) : I’m not trying to diss you guys or anything, I’m just saying that *our* team, the *unprofessional* team, found our dungeon already. Probably. I mean, we found a thing. Which only one of us can look at and actually remember. But it *is there*, and *we found it*, and I think this means you owe me an apology for the comment earlier about our group being lazy.
DAVE (Male, Knight) : absolutely not
Momers (She/Her/Witch) : Because, and again, I’m just sort of assuming here, that Stealth Mountain is at the very least cooler than whatever you’ve found so far. Also, I’ve been walking *so much*. God, all the walking. My feet ache. Do we have an orb for foot stuff?
Momers (She/Her/Witch) : Do not answer that.
Momers (She/Her/Witch) : Anyway. It’s sleep time here, which is why I’m still up and on my phone. How’s your ‘very professional’ squad doing on your end? Is Texas still Texas?
DAVE (Male, Knight) : doing a steak out of the chemical plant
DAVE (Male, Knight) : stakeout
DAVE (Male, Knight) : theres some oter agency or order or something around here
DAVE (Male, Knight) : confirmed dungeon though, so shut up
Momers (She/Her/Witch) : Well ass. I wanted to be the winner.
DAVE (Male, Knight) : ill bring you a souvenir, from the dungeon that has a door, and not a ghost mountain.
DAVE (Male, Knight) : contact. gotta go. be safe
Reed (He/Him) : I let you give me access to this channel because I thought it was for specific emergencies, and you wake me up for this.
Momers (She/Her/Witch) : No no, it’s sleep time *here*.
Reed (He/Him) : I’m twenty three years old, addicted to energy drinks, and live in a basement. It’s sleep time when I fucking say it is. I’m muting this channel and going back to bed.
Momers (She/Her/Witch) : But what if an emergency!
Momers (She/Her/Witch) : Reed?
Momers (She/Her/Witch) : Reeeeeed.
Momers (She/Her/Witch) : Dammit.
-Order of Endless Rooms Discussion Server, Channel “Secret Emergency Stuff”-
_____
Order of Endless Rooms, Operations Manual, Section 4, Part 2-C (Curious)
In the summer of the Order’s first year of existence, we made a slight mistake.
If you’ve read this far comprehensively, you have probably already noticed by now that the magic from Officium Mundi has a stark contrast to the magic from every other dungeon we’ve encountered. Each individual piece of it contains the potential for multiple uses; four so far, that we are aware of. This gives a single prize from the office a startling degree of flexibility in how it is applied. It also comes with a specific worry.
The uses of the orbs are, in many ways, each a facet of a specific concept. When you crack a yellow for a skill, or awaken something inanimate to life, or absorb one for the world’s most extravagant energy drink, you are tapping into the concept of time. Time living, specifically. Or at least, that’s the mental image that works best when absorbing them.
But that leads to a question. If each use is one part of an orb, wouldn’t it be a lot nicer to use the whole thing? It’s like eating a slice of apple and tossing the rest of the apple. It’s almost certain that’s what the glitterdust that comes out of them is, when you crack one.
The purple orbs are useful for improving physical forms when cracked, creating Assignment-class infomorphs when used to give life, and have unknown absorb and totem uses.
When the Research division, then mostly just five people with more dangerous artifacts than safety protocols, were asked to figure out how to create infomorphs with the purples, they ran through a surprisingly long list of options. None of them worked, and we now *know* how to give life to an Assignment, but the last one they tried did something else.
Due to a series of coincidences in how they designed an incubator for the orbs, how they contextualized the process of creation, and a complete lack of regard for OSHA regulations, a situation was created wherein a purple orb was simultaneously generating life, being absorbed, and being utilized as a totem, at the same time. The full long term effects of this event are still not known. It is entirely possible that there are whole people who were fully erased from the collective knowledge and perception of reality. It is very likely that the entity that was created as a result of this caused a distortion that was visible to anyone who was looking. It is also possible there is lingering physical or metaphysical damage to the space around or in the Lair that we aren’t fully aware of. We’ve checked and rechecked all of the green orb effects, as well as the physical structure, but again, we have no way of knowing what happened fully.
What is known is that something emerged from the process, and made contact. The entity, which named herself Curious, rapidly grew to the point that she would not be unfair to refer to her as a god, both in terms of power and physical form. She did have a physical form, albeit one that did not seem to fully manifest in the real world. There were also questions, which were answered as best as possible.
Then the entity died.
Going off of what is now understood, and what was learned from Curious, the entity that was created was undergoing a form of upward feedback loop. It would not stop growing, it could not stop expanding, and it would eventually collapse under its own weight, either literally or metaphorically. And the damage that it would cause if it continued would have been catastrophic. In light of that, and having heard the answers to the questions she had to ask, Curious made a conscious choice to suicide before an extinction scenario began taking place across the planet in her shadow.
Creation of Assignments from purple orbs is safe. Use of totems is safe. Cracking basically any orb is safe. If the user is either not thinking about it, or contextualizing the act properly, every function of an orb is safe.
It is only when we fail to understand what we are doing, and fail to take any reasonable safety measures, that we risk situations like this. Curious, as she was leaving us, asked that one day, when we knew more, when we were better and smarter and more capable, that we remake her. Properly. It is a mystery what a proper version of something like that would be. But, as she was an incarnation of curiosity, of knowledge, it is a reasonable assumption that it *will* be safe one day. If we can understand more, and use it better.
If we don’t wipe ourselves out before then.
If you have been directed to this article by someone who has read it, there is a good chance you are asking that question at the beginning. Why not use every facet of the orb? Well, here’s the answer. We aren’t much about telling people what not to do here at the Order. You’re not children - even if you literally are a child while reading this, odds are good you’re not here because you lack perspective - and a command to avoid something isn’t going to work forever. So instead, here’s the lesson. Learn from it. And don’t repeat the same mistake.
And one day, let us be good enough.
Comments
Argus
They just don't have one 'on file' to copy. James had one, but I think that might have been before they even had the copier.
Shaoraka
But why doesn't every delvers get bone density tho, that's the real question. Also yeah, I'm looking forward to making Curious again.
Björn
I agree that this was a fantastic chapter. And one which was needed to see how the order is growing, not just the characters!
