The dead are at daycare. [DO YOU SEE WHY HE'S EXHAUSTED.] Yamato took a picture of the sign-in sheet that Rupert and the others got from where they went. It's for Wiwaldi Academy daycare and it had the four names of our deceased so far. Sieghart, Bradley and Rupert will probably be added now.
Tell me about it. But. The thing is, that does give us an idea that maybe they aren't totally gone. Like we just have to finish everything here and then we can go pick them up after work or whatever.
You know, it would make the rest of it-- a little bit easier to stomach.
[the idea they might get them back is... well, it's not an entirely unfamiliar situation, considering the way things used to be for her group of friends. her family. and as if that thought alone prompts something-]
[your years have been stressful, lately, but sometimes you get stretches of quiet that you're all grateful for. Taako and Lup have made a stew that everyone's enjoying-- or, well, almost everyone. one of the seven people gathered here is actually a red spectral figure, because now that he and Lup are liches, death is more of an annoyance to Barry than anything else. he died early, this cycle, and he's the one speaking as this memory picks up mid-conversation, saying, "I mean, um... the Conservatories, I guess, for obvious reasons."
Lup answers, "Oh, oh sure, honey, that was a… that was a good one but, man, the food in Tesseralia though, like. It's hard to beat that."
"I mean for me I… I liked the beach year. I feel like it's cheating, but, yeah, that one was my favorite," you add, over your own nearly empty bowl.
Magnus says, a little too much like this is a normal thing to say, "You know, call me crazy, I actually like the one where I got turned to stone." "That’s uh, kind of perverted, maybe a little bit?" you comment. "Well, it was just, you know, it was just such a weird- like, how often do you get to know, and like, remember the sensation of dying by being petrified. You know what I mean? Like- so unique!" "Sure. Sure."
Barry turns to Merle and Taako there to ask their favorite years, on this long journey of yours; Merle brings up a civilization living in a hamster habitat, while Taako is all about Jello Town where it was totally okay to eat people. Magnus changes his answer to a world that was just all puppies, and then Lup turns to your captain, Davenport, to ask his.
"I... I guess... home," he finally answers, which more or less brings an end to that conversation, so you just get up to go wash your dishes after the others go quiet, singing something to yourself as you do. a song you remember.
you don't notice anything wrong at all until you hear Taako ask, "Lucretia, are y-- are you okay?" "I'm just doing my dishes, what's up?" "So... you're singing static, right now."
you look up, there. "What are you talking about? I’m just, I’m singing… Ah, god, what was the name of it? From back at the Conservatory, remember? That red-headed kid, he worked on it for months; he was always bellowing it, down on the quad?"
and Barry adds, "Yeah, what are you guys talking about, I can hear it just fine. You’re sure you can’t hear it? Is this some- are y’all- is this a gag you all are planning?"
"Barry, you sing it," says Magnus, and he does. you hear it perfectly normally.
Taako asks Lup if she can, and she abruptly stands, freaked out.
"What the fuck is going on? Barry, what are you saying-- what the fuck is going on? Is this-- is this Fisher?"
and you have a realization, then, that you just as quickly decide not to talk about. that song was deleted, fed to the voidfish who never broadcast it back out, and you two-- you shouldn't still remember it, but somehow, you do.]
[there's a lot going on here. these are a bunch of people taichi doesn't recognize, but it isn't hard to guess who they may be. it's the people that have been working with lucretia, he thinks, and he can see why they wouldn't normally be the kind to obviously work together. hearing about the different cycles is wild, and he has many questions...
...but then it's the end that leaves him confused. how does a person sing static? why could some of them hear but the others couldn't? why are lucretia and barry the only ones who remember, and what the hell is a voidfish?
when he pulls himself free from the memory he takes a moment to digest it.]
...did you ever realize why you were the only two to remember the song?
...we did, or-- I did. It wasn't too difficult to figure out that Barry was able to remember it because he was a lich; it seems the voidfish's effect on others' memories doesn't extend to the dead, or the-- living dead, as the case may be.
[she pauses, there, before continuing.]
If a living person ingests the voidfish's ichor, however, which I assure you happened completely accidentally-- they become immune, too. They'll remember anything that was being suppressed from their memory, and it can't erase information from them after they've been inoculated.
[and she opens up her notebook to start sketching, there, while she explains.]
It's a type of creature that we found on one of the worlds we visited, and we learned that they have the capability both to absorb and delete information and to broadcast it back out should they decide to do so. They lived in a particular cave on that world, and while visiting it, some of the larger ones-- I guess they thought it would be fun to sort of give me the Fantasy Sea World experience there and splashed me with water from their pool. Doesn't taste great, for the record.
I really doubt creepy fish water's meant to taste good. [he's looking over her shoulder as she sketches though.]
What do you mean it can broadcast it back out? Does it broadcast it back in the right order, or is it scrambled up since it can absorb and delete stuff?
[stop they love their information devouring child. but what she's drawing looks like a large jellyfish with a multitude of tendrils, and as she darkens areas and sketches in parts of the bell, what seems sort of like a galaxy takes shape within it.]
Nor does it really work that way, it's more-- individual pieces. It hasn't actually done this in... decades, at this point, but in the world where we found them, no one truly knew they existed. It was nearly impossible to enter their cave, but conservatories from surrounding kingdoms would... more or less make offerings to this cave, because of the phenomenon the voidfish produced. They would give them a song, or a painting, or any other form of art piece, and it would be immediately deleted... but if the voidfish chose to, they would then broadcast the piece out and implant it in the memory of everyone in that world. Not just the people who were there, or knew of the submission.
Kind of like a prophecy then? [why's it a jellyfish? he's still watching but he seems to understand enough.] Or something valuable for people to share for years to come.
We know the world it originated from, but-- only one of them came with us, and it was a child at the time. There was very limited time to study them as a group.
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[like a real daycare.]
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[the idea they might get them back is... well, it's not an entirely unfamiliar situation, considering the way things used to be for her group of friends. her family. and as if that thought alone prompts something-]
[your years have been stressful, lately, but sometimes you get stretches of quiet that you're all grateful for. Taako and Lup have made a stew that everyone's enjoying-- or, well, almost everyone. one of the seven people gathered here is actually a red spectral figure, because now that he and Lup are liches, death is more of an annoyance to Barry than anything else. he died early, this cycle, and he's the one speaking as this memory picks up mid-conversation, saying, "I mean, um... the Conservatories, I guess, for obvious reasons."
Lup answers, "Oh, oh sure, honey, that was a… that was a good one but, man, the food in Tesseralia though, like. It's hard to beat that."
"I mean for me I… I liked the beach year. I feel like it's cheating, but, yeah, that one was my favorite," you add, over your own nearly empty bowl.
Magnus says, a little too much like this is a normal thing to say, "You know, call me crazy, I actually like the one where I got turned to stone."
"That’s uh, kind of perverted, maybe a little bit?" you comment.
"Well, it was just, you know, it was just such a weird- like, how often do you get to know, and like, remember the sensation of dying by being petrified. You know what I mean? Like- so unique!"
"Sure. Sure."
Barry turns to Merle and Taako there to ask their favorite years, on this long journey of yours; Merle brings up a civilization living in a hamster habitat, while Taako is all about Jello Town where it was totally okay to eat people. Magnus changes his answer to a world that was just all puppies, and then Lup turns to your captain, Davenport, to ask his.
"I... I guess... home," he finally answers, which more or less brings an end to that conversation, so you just get up to go wash your dishes after the others go quiet, singing something to yourself as you do. a song you remember.
you don't notice anything wrong at all until you hear Taako ask, "Lucretia, are y-- are you okay?"
"I'm just doing my dishes, what's up?"
"So... you're singing static, right now."
you look up, there. "What are you talking about? I’m just, I’m singing… Ah, god, what was the name of it? From back at the Conservatory, remember? That red-headed kid, he worked on it for months; he was always bellowing it, down on the quad?"
and Barry adds, "Yeah, what are you guys talking about, I can hear it just fine. You’re sure you can’t hear it? Is this some- are y’all- is this a gag you all are planning?"
"Barry, you sing it," says Magnus, and he does. you hear it perfectly normally.
Taako asks Lup if she can, and she abruptly stands, freaked out.
"What the fuck is going on? Barry, what are you saying-- what the fuck is going on? Is this-- is this Fisher?"
and you have a realization, then, that you just as quickly decide not to talk about. that song was deleted, fed to the voidfish who never broadcast it back out, and you two-- you shouldn't still remember it, but somehow, you do.]
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...but then it's the end that leaves him confused. how does a person sing static? why could some of them hear but the others couldn't? why are lucretia and barry the only ones who remember, and what the hell is a voidfish?
when he pulls himself free from the memory he takes a moment to digest it.]
...did you ever realize why you were the only two to remember the song?
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[she pauses, there, before continuing.]
If a living person ingests the voidfish's ichor, however, which I assure you happened completely accidentally-- they become immune, too. They'll remember anything that was being suppressed from their memory, and it can't erase information from them after they've been inoculated.
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[he would also like to know why barry is a zombie, but one question at a time.]
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[and she opens up her notebook to start sketching, there, while she explains.]
It's a type of creature that we found on one of the worlds we visited, and we learned that they have the capability both to absorb and delete information and to broadcast it back out should they decide to do so. They lived in a particular cave on that world, and while visiting it, some of the larger ones-- I guess they thought it would be fun to sort of give me the Fantasy Sea World experience there and splashed me with water from their pool. Doesn't taste great, for the record.
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What do you mean it can broadcast it back out? Does it broadcast it back in the right order, or is it scrambled up since it can absorb and delete stuff?
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[stop they love their information devouring child. but what she's drawing looks like a large jellyfish with a multitude of tendrils, and as she darkens areas and sketches in parts of the bell, what seems sort of like a galaxy takes shape within it.]
Nor does it really work that way, it's more-- individual pieces. It hasn't actually done this in... decades, at this point, but in the world where we found them, no one truly knew they existed. It was nearly impossible to enter their cave, but conservatories from surrounding kingdoms would... more or less make offerings to this cave, because of the phenomenon the voidfish produced. They would give them a song, or a painting, or any other form of art piece, and it would be immediately deleted... but if the voidfish chose to, they would then broadcast the piece out and implant it in the memory of everyone in that world. Not just the people who were there, or knew of the submission.
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Nobody knows where it came from or anything?
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