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(this story was originally written October 28, 2024)
Here’s the cave dark purple with smoothly curved walls open air above blank void floating red cubes. Red cubes glowing softly, rotate on move. Rare event known one in sixty five thousand five six five or thereabouts. No effect of global interest but still draws attention. Walk back and forth and cubes rotate in sync. Self interlocked with local environs depersonalization of interest wrt larger thematic purpose we consider the rarity and inexplicability of the event as signal Yume Nikki no 3D space Dream Emulator yes why here though not certain to be determined by following scenes. No mobs. Long tunnel strictly linear. Look mismatched texture right forward and below. Lower. Yes item pressed inelegantly against wall otherwise invisible. Borton’s Club collect. Plus fifty-three lightning interesting possibly pricey no use though as running strict Purity build need wisdom minmax. Can’t spare for whimsy in primary weapon slot. Other statistics nominal. Bottom of bag.
Keep going down cave longer than expected bored try to move faster now ignoring red cubes. Next sudden transition all white. No shadows consequently distance to walls cannot be determined. Tunnel one end brown door other, termina provide only positional grounding. Luckily straight shot. Hidden spatial information means likely secret. Press against walls and stare at tunnel exit watching for sudden slip of movement, move back and repeat, continue motion across one wall. Found nothing same other wall. Halfway through slip and tunnel exit no longer visible found it. Unfortunately now termina hidden by secret maze wall no longer capable of visual positioning. Move by touch. Small area and so quickly encounter a fairy.
Orange head green body. Says nothing but offers integration fourteen p at forty-eight percent. Dilemma. Fairy silence is ambiguous could be oblique nature or simply shy but more likely the former given hidden maze location. Check p, over one hundred twenty but painful finitude sense regardless no over one hundred twenty means hoarder instinct to be resisted. No fairy in seven plus hours means unlikely to find better options any time soon. Still ambivalent oblique fairy will be a nuisance until minimum three hours and might be dead by then anyway. Seven plus hours with no fairy contained pleasant simplicity realizing general dispreference. Might be a mimic fairy no mimics can’t have orange head. Decide against and walk backwards lack of visual positioning worse on the way back. Several minutes of bumbling between walls eventually catch tunnel exit. Other direction towards brown door.
Move to open door STOP shuddering effect black haze on edges circular particles drifting inward towards visual center. Garbage zone. Only single use poison cures and risk long vertical drop no means of spatial anchoring. Risk of bag golems. Low mood not ready nothing to really look for down there. Bag golems drop brown helmet twenty percent chance and higher wisdom than current but could likely purchase better within the hour w/ profits from lightning club. Turn around back down white corridor towards red cube tunnel.
Tunnel feels longer. Cube rotation angle may have changed but hard to tell. Suddenly need purpose. Where am I. Goals meanings goals. Purpose. Trying to maximize purity build for Fralzago. Higher. Higher. Check progress. Sixty-one percent. Higher. Higher. What is this where am I. Why. Phenomenal experience precedes conscious desire. Meaning inherent in ongoing production of sense-data. Sight sound touch motion. I am only shepherd. Higher. Higher. Wait no lower. Check progress. Sixty-one percent. It was sixty-three yesterday. Backsliding somehow. Something possibly lost stop in tunnel and check. Check. Check. No nothing lost all progress at expected points but additional requirements have been added. Dammit. All is obligation. Skim additional requirements but nothing severe likely to be fulfilled in natural course of events, still pained by backsliding. Speed up to compensate. Must be more efficient.
End of tunnel now return to red docks. Torches at regular intervals hung unsuspended above regular wooden texture but large intricate surface geometry when seen from above. Easy to get lost luckily nothing to do now but retrace steps. Ghosts flit by pay me little mind I return the favor. Proud. Non hostile ghosts difficult to maintain requires careful resource management up to approx twenty percent too easy to slip in managing cultural codes but well worth it never forsaken and well scaled trade. Yellow ghost I say hello it says yes I ask price for lightning club but no interest limited selection mostly tinctures and single use herbs I say thank you it says pleasure to make your acquaintance. Limited conversational options means likely non recurring. Loading zone soon as I approach boat and it will cease. Sad little creature I consider buying something to commemorate its existence but already in other direction not worth turning back too late now anyways there will be more yellow ghosts.
Boat slower than usual but nevertheless I choose Triania at ten point zero miles not Myceliorum at seven point four miles despite greater distance need a larger city at this dreary moment. Boat man elderly possibly early stage senility. Ask questions. Question one how long have you been working these docks question two do you have any kids question three have you ever considered getting into astrology question four where do you live spots contradiction. Question one answer forty three years since moving south but question four answer Doghouse Grove born ‘n raised ‘n gonna be buried there but Doghouse northwesterly one hundred thirty one latitude too far to be coincidence confirms early stage senility. Continue motion in silence.
Check progress again. Additional requirements more cumbersome than initial read incl. two kills in a row without weapon obviously expecting astral projection exploits will be unbearable to set up certainly easier with oblique fairy dammit dammit could be worth turning around. Maybe. Nevertheless continue slow boat ride lacking rational cause. Just not another long walk purple tunnel red cubes. Slow dreary want action. Where am I. Stop ask again question three. Skimmed previously but answer longer than expected. Same answer second time lucky early stage senility mitigates refusals. Old man says used to imagine astrology containing depths of beauty but preferred the imagining to the searching and so no attempt to practical application. Details of imagining forgotten leaving only imprint of lost fantasy like tears in rain etc. “Desire only the feeling of desire.” And folly of youth only now age perspective loss etc. Conventional conclusion for male boat drivers homogeneously depressive character. Still surprising length multi paragraph deliberate carefully sincere maybe autobiographical. Who is this talking. No name.
Seems increasingly slants towards desirelessness theme in conversation when exiting from red docks not matching all past data points so maybe noise but could be weighted random. Possibly overthinking. Red docks bleak sort of place transitional to hidden or esoteric as in the seen red cube and white hall events but alternative possibilities blue staircase and fallen bookshelf events similar in nature. Symbols suggest bleakness as precursor for insight or invocation to reach the unknown but spoils of exploration relatively bland one club and missed oblique fairy ultimately falls flat other areas do better six out of ten. And fucking garbage zone bag golems could have gotten lucky and rosemary island instead. If rosemary island and chance boot drop twenty three wisdom or higher could have Fralzago fight by now. Cruel fate to be rendered asymbolic. Deceleration. Where am I.
Finally in Triania thank you choose effusive over polite no good with subtlety for the old man in early stage senility. Large tip twenty five percent why not. Check time three AM and two. Rain appears in brief flashes against the white of windows in apartments but only light showers ground not damp and disappears against skin. Aimless wander. Need to be more efficient. Check need for sleep still rested from unconscious maintenance of various exhaustion management exploits must have been doing it on boat and in red cube tunnel while distracted. Still might be worth three to four point five hours at the very least a dream would be nice. Sell lightning club first. Spot apothecary. Serendipity.
Apothecary takes lightning club one hundred thirty three point three percent asking price claiming personal historical interest in Borton. Canned response stretches suspension of disbelief if these generic goods hawkers are to be believed half the city has personal historical interest in every single person who ever had a club named after them. Purchase tincture of blue mugwort. Buy one get one free. Accept. Walk outside turn to next store offers mechanical parts sell second tincture of blue mugwort for tiny profit hardly worth the opportunity cost. If you spot and pick up a penny on the ground the efficiency cutoff is approx 3 seconds past which point you would have been working for less than minimum wage. What is a penny.
Hotel for sleep. Drink blue mugwort effect sleep skip to REM next eight hours. Low quality taste expect seventy to eighty percent effectiveness given canned response in apothecary. New hotel visible in distance aiming for thirty hotels slept in total. Six of eight cleared in Triania chose bigger city for this and similar. Cut through alley, mugger. Blue orb blue orb. Small profits dropped knife. Ignore not worth clutter. Two more muggers but they run. One has blackened knife could kill take melt knife later for liquid obsidian. Check bag two liquid obsidian want five or six worth it. Look back muggers gone oh well. Revisionist instinct reframe as conscious mercy. Kindness to spare cowardly muggers. False. Muggers are killed but they do not die. Cannot have mercy without consequence.
Near hotel, step in mud. Slow for thirty seconds. Approach front door becomes glacial pace. Where am I. Retrospect red cube tunnel as subject of future dreams. Unlikely given last slept four days ago more fruitful materials available for unconscious regurgitation. Forgetful of details. Could be nine fire elementals altar of globes was ten AM and two nights past. Three AM and twenty four now so approx sixty five hour distance. Or something better but lost in memory fragment bubble. Blue mugwort tincture produces false lethargy intermittent bursts. Side effect not listed slipped out of mind. Will persist after wakeup could extend sleep. Can’t can’t can’t need to be more efficient. Dammit. Dispiriting but limited serious impact can push through. Unpleasant morning ahead. Already in elevator room ninth floor. Desk conversation automatic benefits of conversation in hotel strictly limited. Unable to encounter credulous or clueful options in hotel desk conversation tree. Could have encountered political. Many other chances for political in Triania.
Enter room wall texture identical to outside. Lazy. Ablutions and attempt ritual contact of tarantula goddess. Extraordinarily unlikely hail mary even repeated across months but quick ritual only two minutes. Reach in bag access discarded webbings burn with lighter scatter around mirror. Say the words. No room for decision in ritual invocation. Wait twenty seconds. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Nothing. Disappointment muted by repetition. All for the best as answer whether to kill tarantula goddess still uncertain heard venom staff weakens every year. Eventual summoning unavoidable but multiple behaviors compatible with progress. Where am I goals meaning goals purpose sleep soon. Sleep now.
Sleep now. Blue mugwort hypnagogia direct into REM shuddering jolting sensation goes into red blue bubbling white white. Red cubes. Now time the intravenous arrangement get off my skin get off off you own this hold up IV bag fluid this is yours plus two in the bag. Need to work out twenty three plus seventy three ends in six eighty ninety but what question but forgotten means the butterfly count is off. The butterfly count is wrong too many. They swarm my head. Circle eyes grab one two more appear. “They lift me up in mercy”. What is above. Look but can’t. Eyes cast downward funeral procession. Who is dead I cannot look up to see. Why do we mourn when there is no more death. Someone up front stands at podium has the answer I approach. Looks so serious and this must be a punishment. Mourning is a curse that precedes death he grins wide and his pupils expand to fill his eyes and it seems he should be laughing but he does not so I laugh for him but it does not sound right he can see my laugh is false and his would be otherwise so I try to laugh lower or higher but still wrong and he reaches sharpness in bladder wake up.
Shamble to piss. Look in mirror. Looks alive. Shamble to piss but something is wrong. Not a hotel bathroom too dirty. Check mirror again. One hundred and forty four crisp frames per second. Can’t piss. Look down no lower body. Disintegrating upward soon nothing below shoulders. Not awake still dreaming. Red cubes in the mirror. Move and they rotate see self reflected in local environs. Red cube comfort dissolves nightmare. Only sleep. Phenomenal experience sight sound taste motion. Color. Purple tunnel red cubes. Color. Color. Only dreams. Watch texture on wall. Shape and geometry. Sudden clarity says sleep for approx three point five hours to maximize. Even in blue mugwort tincture REM dream modality there is no escape from clarity. Purple tunnel red cubes. What is being maximized.