networkinthenight | [text] @keeper; cw: character death [open]

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[text] @keeper; cw: character death [open]

Heyyy everybody. I'm the LH Keeper. I know you guys probably got some questions for me but like sit tight first OK? I promise I'll answer eeeeverything you wanna know in just a sec. There's a couple things I wanna say.

The first one being, hi! I'm Robin. It's SO good to finally get to chat with you all, like jeez I've been hella bored over here. That party you guys just put on looked really fun. :( I'm sad I missed it! But that's kinda how it goes when you're the Keeper. Rastus said there's been a lot of talk about like fulfilling our roles and stuff, and this is mine! I'm in the lighthouse because it let's me do a bunch of stuff to manage the town and help keep the world safe, but it means I'm stuck out here all by myself and I don't get to do the fun stuff I want to do sometimes. Which is why I'm so so SO happy that you guys and gals got me hooked up to the network again! Thank you so much!!! ❤❤❤

Oh right, and you guys have had a lot of questions about what I'm protecting the town from, haven't you? Me and Will talked and he's super sure it's best if HE gives you the skinny on all that since he said he would and he wants to make good on his promise, you feel? So he's gonna do that after the ferry gets here so all the new people can get the info too. Sound good? Sorry you gotta wait just a liiiittle bit longer but there's something else I think we should talk about first...

The forest spirits are still reporting the numbers so I don't know exactly how many we're up to yet but... A lot of people went missing and probably died from how things went down after the party. I'll put all the names in the next bulletin (sorry I didn't do one this week btw! things have been kinda crazy...) but if you want to ask about your friends and stuff in the meantime, I'll do my best to tell you what I know. Maybe some of them will come back? We just have to wait and see.

But... you guys probably saw this in that post Rosinante and Riku and Peter did, but just in case you didn't: Captain Winters died, and so did Five. I didn't see what happened exactly but I saw the spirits starting to come for them all and I tried to stop them but they didn't listen. They get really angry about people coming to the lighthouse or me trying to leave, even the ones that are usually really nice.

I hope they'll both come back but I don't know if they will, so, just in case... Winters would want you all to take care of the town for him and move on you know? He won't be around when the ferry comes so make sure you all fill the new people in on what's happened and how to survive here. All that really important stuff he's been telling people is up to you guys to spread around now.

*BIG SIGH* OK WELL I don't want to end on that super negative note but now I'm all sad sooo ask me questions and stuff, and Will will tell everyone about what I'm keeping the town safe from real soon. It really is nice to meet you all!!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nice to formally meet you, Robin. I'm glad you have a connection to us again, I can imagine how hard it was to be on your own up there.

As far as questions go, can I ask how you became the keeper? Are you from the same group as Winters was?

Hi! Thank you. You're Matt, right? It does get like really lonely up here honestly.

But anyway, so like, it's kind of a long story, but no, I got here a long time before Winters. Rastus is the only one you guys have met that has been here longer than me.

I became the Lighthouse Keeper because... I kind of got lucky, I guess? At least I thought I did at the time. The Keeper before me didn't want to do it anymore and was trying to reset the group I was part of but I didn't want to die for good so I said I would take over.

Right, I am. Sorry, I should have started there.

That sounds like quite the choice, death or staying alone in the dark. Is this the first time you've been disconnected, or does it happen after every reset?

It's fine! I know who all of you are, creepy as that sounds. Rastus has been keeping me in the loop, and now I've got that handy list of everyone's usernames. 👍

It happens after every reset. Have you ever played a video game with an autosave function? The town works kind of like that. I guess there's no way to "update" the save file, so whenever we do a reset, the town loads up the last save. Or like "rolls back" to it. That's a better way to put it.

( for someone who can smell when you last showered, Matt is pretty touchy about his privacy. he does find it a little creepy, though he is kind enough not to agree with the sentiment out loud. )

I'm afraid I don't play much video games, but I think I get the idea.

What changes during a reset? Besides the removal of any soul that is trapped here. What does the "save file" start out with?

You know how the town is really small right now? It's actually wayyyy bigger, but the resets roll it back to the bare basics. Just, like, Bonfire Square and the harbor and the church, I think. I don't really know why it's just that stuff? Maybe because that's where the bonfire is and then the ferry has to dock somewhere... The church is just kinda between those two, so why not?

So, like, HYPOTHETICALLY... I want to stress that this is just hypothetical!!! But if I were to do a reset right NOW, which I'm NOT going to do...

All those places you guys have discovered, and the stuff you've built? Like the bridges and how some of you live in the village now and you've put torches around town, yadda yadda... All that stuff gets undone. It's a clean slate for the next group of people.

( it seems counter-intuitive, if the motivation was to find the answers. why not continue at established process? clearly the set up is far from ideal.

truth be told, he's more distracted by the implication of something else she's said. )

Could you do that? Your hypothetical, I mean. Is that your choice entirely, when these resets occur?

I could, yeah. That's the one thing I have complete control over. It's, like, my main job.

( uncomfortable knowledge, but good to know. that's the sort of thing it's worse to not know. )

What makes you choose to reset? I'll be honest, it seems cruel to wipe away what is left of lost souls who are brought against their will and trapped in a nearly impossible situation they are expected to resolve with limited information.

There's only limited information since we don't know much yet ourselves.

But anyway, you're not wrong. It sucks. I hate having to reset this place, especially when there's a really good group and we've just run out of time. But that's the thing: It's always my choice, yeah, but I can't let anyone stay here indefinitely. It's too dangerous.

Just keep that in mind when Will tells you guys what's up.

It's kind of like... have you heard of that thing where, if you get a terminal illness or something, you can freeze yourself instead of dying? Where I'm from, that technology is nowhere NEAR advanced enough to actually bring people back from being frozen, but people still sign up for it since a 0.000001% chance is better than nothing.

So it isn't just a matter of continuing to try and find answers and not turning against each other, if we don't make progress fast enough the result will be the same?

( well, that's not super promising... )

I've heard of cryogenics in science fiction. Occasionally in rumors and urban legend, not really reality.

Do you mind me asking where you were before you were here? If it isn't too personal.

Yeah, basically. We're on a timer, so unless we find a way to disrupt the status quo, I'll have to do another reset.

Buuut that timer is pretty lengthy, at least. Usually we have about two years. The longest I've ever been able to go is close to three, but I've never HAD to do a reset before, like... Maybe a year and a half?

Will said he and Winters didn't tell you guys about This Big Thing because they wanted you to have some time to get your bearings here before dropping a big scary bombshell. I don't know if I agree, exactly, but that's a matter of opinion. They're not WRONG in that you guys do have some time to pace yourselves.

And like, you should. Just because there's a timer doesn't mean we gotta rush. That can only lead to bad things.

But I don't mind at all! I'm from Earth. Idk if you're familiar but I grew up in Los Angeles which is in the United States!! It was 2018 when I died. What about you?

Good to be aware of our timeline if we're hoping to avoid the worst.

( Matt can't decide if he is. if this is Purgatory then perhaps part of their penance is finding the answers, currently swallowed in black. if it isn't, well, it's only back to being dead on the other side, and he doesn't super love that prospect, either. )

Considering acclimating wasn't easy to begin with, they might have had a point. I won't know until the other shoe drops, I suppose.

We were from the same place, or... similar. I've never been to LA but I think most Americans have heard of it. It wasn't 2018 when I left New York. How is it possible that people can be brought from different times and... worlds, on occasion?

👍

Yeah, I'm not sold on the method myself, honestly, but I see why they decided to withhold stuff. It's not how I would've done it, but hey, that's why fresh blood is so important sometimes! If I was just over here going through the same motions over and over again, we'd never get anywhere. At least Winters was trying something new.

I'd be, like, crazy frustrated though! So I get where that's coming from too.

Oooh New York! The city? I got to go there once and it was the BOMB. I love LA but I'm kind of jealous!!

I'm not sure how it's POSSIBLE, but what I can tell you is that everyone ends up here because of some weirdo space-time rift, or something. A portal, I guess? Not sure what to call it, but it sucks people in from all across a bunch of different universes. The only thing everyone has to have in common is that they're dead.

How is it that Winters and Ingram survived the last reset? Or were they the only remaining members of the last group that was here?

( important to specify, because if they are combined with another group, then it could mean they have less time than previously speculated. )

That's the one. I suppose it's slightly biased to call it my favorite place on earth when I've never been anywhere else, but where you grow up becomes a part of you. At least it did for me.

How are you certain that everyone was dead? I presume not all of us died in hugely remarkable ways. ( like slowly slipping away in your sleep, for example.... . . . .. . .. . .. )

I told the forest spirits to leave Winters and Rastus alone. They usually listen when I tell them people are off limits. Will wasn't someone I was planning to hold over, but he managed to hack into my computer. :/ Messed up everything until I agreed to let him stay too.

Hmm, I guess I'm not 100% certain? I don't know every single person's backstory, but no one's ever come forward like "hey actually I'm not dead!" in a way that held water.

Well, that was kind of you. Doesn't seem like the best way to ask someone for a favor, but I am not the expert on that.

( he's definitely not, he would rather die sad and alone than ask for anything important. whoops. aNYWAY, )

Fair enough. I don't remember dying, though that doesn't mean I didn't. I've just been wondering why everyone was so certain death was an essential criteria.

LOL same here, honestly. I wasn't too happy about it.

But whatever. It's the cards we're playing with now.

Hey, I think it's good to question stuff that's just tossed around as common knowledge! New perspectives are important, and taking stuff at face value can be risky.

Part of what makes me think everyone is dead too is that this world is dead, hence the lack of light. Light = life, apparently. I remember hearing that the portal or whatever it is drags in dead people because that's the only thing a dead world can hold.

Might as well make the most of them. Makes sense, even if it can be difficult in execution.

Does that make whatever lights our lantern what is left of our lives? While I'm at it, can you explain to me how we get tied to the lanterns to begin with?

Yeah, I think that's how it works! It's one way to look at it, anyway.

Oh, woof, that's a hard question. I couldn't begin to explain how it's an automated thing these days, but I know that, like... The lanterns are man-made, I guess? Maybe not LITERALLY handcrafted, but they were designed to harness the life force of people coming into the world. That's why you die if your lantern goes out, and vice versa. If you DIDN'T have a lantern coming into this world, you'd just be, like, a corpse, I think.

Maybe that's why people have to be dead before coming here? Only dead stuff can come in, which means your life force is separated from your body and put into the lantern...? Maybe? Does that make any sense?

So the lanterns predated human presence here? Or they were made by whoever was here when all this started?

( either way, curious and creepy, that someone predicted this situation well enough to create lanterns capable of harnessing a soul (more or less) to maintain life even in the dark. )

I think so. It's a little hard to conceptualize, but I think that's more a matter of this afterlife being so different from what I was expecting.

They were made by the people here when this started! I'm not sure if they're human or not, actually. If they aren't, then I guess both of your theories are correct. :^)

What were you expecting?

( Robin, don't open this box of worms. or catholicism, as it were. )

For myself? I suppose I was expecting damnation or purgatory. If this is purgatory, it's not much like what the bible claimed it would be.

So is this better or worse than damnation or purgatory?

Anything would be better than hell, that's an easy answer.

Purgatory offers a chance of redemption, of one day moving on to something greater. If this isn't some odd form of purgatory, then I'm not sure I'd call it better.

( a bunch of people trapped in a dead and dark world until at some point they're reset into complete nonexistence for failing to accomplish a task that multiple groups had thus far failed at? pretty depressing... )

[text] @keeper; cw: character death [open]

@HK

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