deernet | 001 // text; username: grollschwert

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001 // text; username: grollschwert

What's up.
Are we doing introductions now? I guess we're doing introductions.
Name's Anna. Professional city defender and mostly robot girl.
Coming here from a place called Recolle that I'm pretty sure no one here knows about, which is cool.

Never been much for stuff like this, so, like, I don't know.
Anyone needs a katana at their side, look me up. I'm pretty damn good at it.
I might not know what's going on here, but far as I'm concerned, this is where I live now and it makes sense for everyone if I actually try to keep it safe.

And since I'm in full spaghetti at the wall mode right now, lemme just throw out some words, see if it triggers anything for any of you guys.
Zee Carlisle. Clarence Vanderweele. Layers of reality. Retrospec.
The Geteilts.
Nothing?
Yeah, didn't think so.

Anyway, yeah, flag me down if you see me on the streets and need some protection or whatever. I'm five ten and I only have one eye. I'm hard to miss.

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Hey, fire away.
All I've heard so far is something that I didn't understand much of with a child and a dream.
And how this is supposed to be the real world under that dream, and how nobody's sure if they actually made the right choices back in Deerington.

Tell me what you have been told so far. I was in Deerington, the previous town, for nearly three years, so I can perhaps clear up what's going on.

Not a lot.
This kid Oscar told me that Deerington used to be a dream inside of a child's head, and that this place is supposed to be what the real world looks like.
Seems like everyone is confused about whether they made the right choices and could actually save the kid or not.
It also sounds like a lot of you were inside that dream for a while -- like you said, three years, you know. And that's a lot of time for weird stuff to happen.
Lots of time to learn everything about how the world works, but if it all gets snatched away from you at the last second then what the hell, right?
Who knows anything about anything anymore?

Okay. This will sound weird. But you're in this place, so you'll have to just accept that it's your reality now.

Deerington was a town in rural Maine, and it was perpetually locked in the 1950s. Deerington itself was a dream, an actual dream world created in the mind of a very traumatized child-god. Deerington was a nightmare, most of the time. It was quite bad, and Trench does not seem quite as bad. That should give you an indication as to how bad Deerington was, if this is pleasant by comparison.

A few months ago, the dream started to come unraveled. Whatever powers that be...the child (Sodder, you might hear her name) and her family and several other individuals with godlike powers (Pthumerians, I believe they call themselves)...remade the world and pulled themselves and us out of the dream. Both parties were changed, the child most of all. It was not a happy time for anyone, and it was a confusing time for everyone. I don't know if there is a straight answer to offer you regarding what exactly happened, miss.

I am not sure how we ended up in Trench, but it appears to be the waking world of Sodder's reality. We've left the dream and we've arrived here, and there are new people being pulled in somehow, such as yourself. I don't know how that works yet either, since it was Sodder and the dream depositing us here first.

Nah, trust me, I have a high tolerance for weird stuff happening.
Thanks for the rundown. A lot of this makes more sense than I want it to. Things get strange when reality starts breaking down around you.
Whether it's because of gods or people or just... a baby that started waking up.

So this is Sodder's actual world and we all live in it now, or at least that's what everyone seems to think.
No way to guarantee this isn't someone else's dream, but if I go too far down that rabbit hole then I start going into that deep philosophical shit that I'm not a fan of.
It's still probably way too early on to figure out what this place wants from us, but I get the feeling it's gonna be something big.
It usually is, right? We just don't know at the start.

Yes, I suppose that's a good way to look at it.

As far as we can tell, yes this is the start. The natives may as well be artificial as far as I can tell. In Deerington they were just constructs of Sodder's imagination and they were awful. Here is a big improvement.

Yes, it is going to build to something bigger. I already have a feeling about that, unfortunately. And it's a bad one.

I've seen constructs before. These guys... I don't know.
They act and feel real, and it's hard to think of a dream or a computer program or whatever being this obsessed with blood.
Guess we'll find out eventually.

So what are you thinking? Staging a war for our resources? Fending off another apocalypse?
Someone shakes the cradle a bit too hard and we gotta calm her down from the tantrum?

Oh, yes. Blood. That's right.
It's getting close to October.

In Deerington, October was always the worst month. The streets would often just run with blood, and the moon would turn red. I truly hope that's behind us.

I'm thinking that we need to find our footing first, but that we may be adrift in Trench for a time. Until something becomes more readily apparent, at least, there doesn't seem to be a pending apocalypse. The world is whole, with no tears in the layers of reality, and for the moment the only trouble appears to be cultural differences.

What is the place you gained all this experience like?

Well, their Octobers were a little different.
Only one I was there for, people started turning into movie monsters. Your Draculas, your Frankensteins.
It was a lot of stuff that messed with the world around us and who we were all supposed to be. Changed our ideas of who we are.
There was one summer where everything just kind of shifted to the left a little. It shifted back for some people after a couple months, but not for everyone.
One of my closest, oldest friends changed permanently from that.
It didn't stop us from being friends, but I had to relearn almost everything about her.
I hope she's doing okay.

God, never mind, you didn't ask about any of that sappy shit.
Point is that, going off the literally nothing we have right now, it feels like things are gonna be way more visceral when it comes to threats around here.
Blood and bone, tooth and claw.
Could be a "nice" change.

I'm sorry to hear about your friend.
I'm sure she's doing okay.

And I do not mind listening to you talk about your loved ones. In my world, I'm a priestess. Here, I think that's a role I might take on again. And, like bartenders, we listen to people talk about what they love.

Visceral is definitely something that can apply to this world.

Are you a daredevil, Anna?

Pff. Yeah, you like it now, wait until I really get started and you're tossing me through a stained glass window.

Blood priestess could be interesting. God knows we gotta take what we can get around here, and if you're already good at it then go for it.
I'm pretty good at daredevilry, for example.
There a reason you're asking?

That would require more effort than listening to you, I'm sure.

I ask because you came across as excited for the visceral.
And because it's good to know who in this town can fight.
My partner, Winter, is the one organizing a defense force and patrol group on the network, and I think along similar lines.

Don't know if I'd call myself excited for it, but it's definitely easier than the alternative.
You and Winter are a thing? Mazel tov. I already talked to her a bit about joining up and I think she's got me aboard.
Plus she told me to talk to ol' one-eye Ruby about learning how to add a gun to my repertoire.
Feels like I'm already starting to run into all the right people, you included. Not a bad way to make an entrance here.

Yes. And my name is Rei Hino, since I failed to give that earlier.
I wouldn't say I'm anything particularly special, I just happen to have had the fortune and ill-fortune to have been in Deerington for longer than most.
Shiro Takashi and Eddie Kaspbrak might be the two people who've been here the longest.

Ruby is certainly someone to meet. She is an experience.

Shiro and Eddie. Got it, I can follow up with them too if I need anything else.
Nice meeting you, Rei. Ruby's not bad, but it's nice to talk to some people actually focused on finding stuff out.
Not that I'm opposed to the other half of that process (fucking around), but, like, you know.
Gotta get your bearings first.

Getting your bearings is important.

May I ask, what is it you do? What's your specialty? Your occupation in your home?

Oh, god, uh.
Well, back home I was basically a sword for hire, except I never asked for pay.
Worked a little as a tour guide, did a few months as a musician before my bandmates forgot I existed.
Before that I did tier 2 tech support, so if anyone has office equipment that breaks down or networks with connectivity issues, I can probably fix that.
Might have been a bit in the middle there where I was a waitress at a bunny girl cafe, but you know, who knows, that could've been a dream or whatever. Totally impossible to tell.

Round here I'm looking to do more of the same. It's all about helping out wherever I can.

So, you did general odd jobs, and you know how to fight. That's good to know.

I'm curious about the bunny girl bit.
Seems like a thing a mercenary would avoid.

Listen, I needed the money and the place was cool with me turning into a robot.
Plus my ex worked there and she got me in easy.
We all make mistakes when we get desperate.

No judgment.
I'm sure it worked well for you.

Better than you'd expect.
Turns out I got a real fuckin' charm to me when I'm getting paid for it.

I wouldn't have doubted either of those things.

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001 // text; username: grollschwert

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the nostalgia, bruh.

she'll never forget kara

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