Have a nice trip, Chief! Sounds kinda like home to me, though my hometown has a population of only 2k who mostly work in agrarian-related fields like farming, livestock, etc. Our town center has one grocery store and two bars, which tells about priorities x)

And sorry for the spotty activity. School's been busy as I am wrapping up my studies and getting ready for the final apprenticeship period set to start late next month. I should be graduating around late august or early September. My health situation is ok, we had a small setback last month, but we are back on track again.

As always, your patience with me has been greatly appreciated. I'll try to be more active in the coming week. You've yet to get rid of me ;)

I hope everyone has a wonderful easter weekend.

It's fine, you can use this small pause to focus on your studies if you need to, Ashaia! I certainly don't want to get rid of you, so it's a good thing that I'm not in danger of that happening. :)

and back in the books of the living!

I am not too sure how I can contribute to the main thread?

In reply to Ashaia (msg # 194):

That one's in pause right now anyway, but if you feel like offering suggestions or comments on how to handle things, that could help - although I believe that, with having been unable to sleep, Carmen might not have full access to her telepathy right now.

Yup. Using Nothing as a hub would be an alternative, though one that would require their permission obviously :)

I also don't have the range Carmen does - I can't actually remember what my range is but I think I have to at least know a person is there or something (I'm pretty sure it works through walls and stuff). With my telepathy it's not so much "group chat" as "private telephones with me as the hub receiving and choosing to pass on all the messages, and also people have to wait for me to call them first so they can reply to me (unless they have their own telepathy)" :D. But I suppose it would still be better than no telepathy at all. Maybe we're spoilt by having it in the first place - after all, it's hardly a guaranteed thing in any given group.

The mission can absolutely be completed without telepathy, teleportation, the ability to swim through rock, or any of a number of other abilities that you have. Of course, using them makes your life simpler, but you should still be able to manage without, when the situation interferes with their use.

Lol well of course, I would expect that to be the case - if an NPC gives us a "Complete this or you're screwed" mission it would be horribly unfair for it to require some kind of resource we have no way of accessing :D. It's nice that this "Spheres" system does allow us to fine-tune our abilities, though, so we can anticipate what we might be needing and develop ourselves accordingly. In my case I've ended up leaning pretty much completely into what I originally thought was gonna be my "secondary" ability set, but there you go - serves it right for looking really cool :D.

Hi everyone! If you're not keeping track, it's the 15 of May, meaning that the pause I suggested we take from the game is mostly over. This is just me checking in, making sure that everybody is feeling well. If anybody has problems or isn't feeling good, make sure to mention it, ok?

That said, I hope that you're all ready, so we can finally get this mission of "break the fortress" underway, assuming you all still want to. I, for one, am very much looking forward to it! ^_^

Yup, just need to go through the scheduled Story Time first :P

Im ready~! Ill go edit my reply asap so you guys have good stuff, and everyone, while I do not have telepathy RAJ DOES as does Nothing so please please just use them to ask me stuff to ask others.

Sure, I'm still here :). I think I was hiding in the tunnel place intending to try and explore the fort once it's dark or something.

On the telepathy front, I'm not sure the range on mine, and I think it only works through walls if I know where the person is, but remember you can't initiate telepathy with me unless you have the ability yourself - otherwise you have to wait for me to call you, as it were (at which point you can answer if I choose to allow it, because it's like I've popped inside your head for a chat an may elect to stick around and wait for the reply).

hey just an update, I've been on vacation but boyfriend got sick and now I'm sick, I'll get a post up in a day, but I wanted you guys to know what was up

That's really sad to hear, I wish you both to get better soon!

Hey! I am back in the book of the living again. Things should settle down soon with the school part of my education coming to an end.

Happy to hear you're fine Ashaia! You have my best wish that things for you go well. :)

Wlecome back Ashaia! Glad to gave ya :D

Update on update boyfriend has Covid and I am showing signs sooooooo if Im loopy thats why

I really wish you a quick and prompt recovery Carmen, make sure not to overstress and to take care of yourself!

Hi everybody.

I'm getting a growing sense that this game is pretty much dead at this point - is there even any interest in any of you continuing this? And yes, I'm aware that some of you have good reasons for not posting anything in-character, and good real life reasons not to be very active, but I feel like there's no point keeping a game up that isn't bringing fun and entertainment to any of the player in it, and is instead just a chore for people, that they have to force themselves to log in and post into despite not wanting to, just not to disappoint me.

So, I'm stating clearly and publicly that I won't be disappointed or annoyed or anything like that if people feel like there's no entertainment left in the game for them, I'd just like to know. Can people tell me what their opinion is? Again, just be honest and say so if you feel like the game's become a chore for you - I won't be offended, these things just happen sometimes.

I need to speak up on this.

I love this game. I love playing villains, I love Carmen, I constantly praise this game to my friends because I just want to play it.

But not as a single-player campaign.


This game has become a chore to me because I feel like I am alone on making sure this game doesn't end in a TPK. As it stands, I have zero ideas on how to coordinate the takedown of the Tower by myself, and I haven't been posting because I dread the next post where I fuck up, and the game ends because of my actions. It feels like I have no backup, no help, no friends.

I get everyone is busy. But I can't do 5 people's work. Maybe if this was three years ago when I had nothing to do, sure, but I have to juggle a full school load, work, a boyfriend, regular friends, and everything else that pops up.

I love this game. I want to play. But it has become a chore because this game is not made to be single-player, and its been months since anyone really helped.

Im sorry if this sounds accusatory--Im just exhausted.

In reply to Carmen Gorgon (msg # 211):

Thank you for saying that, Carmen; it's excellent to know. It already gives me ideas on how I could work to fix the problem, although obviously this isn't a thing I can fix by myself, so I'll wait for everybody else to post what they think, both about my question and the point you've raised - the usual two days - so we all can figure something out together.

Well, Adrika's mostly silent because that's the tactic we agreed on, one that she herself suggested: She's the backup plan, the safety net for the others. If all else fails, she can tunnel people under the wall to get them inside, and in case anyone gets captured the three groups we have have little to no apparent contact with one another.

Currently, what we need is intel and that was what you and Ashaia would be in charge of, with Ashaia getting a noble tour of the place and you getting the worker's tour. Adrika's going to help teach a bunch of kids tomorrow, and we all know how social she tends to be so that would pose a challenge for her also.

Moral of the story is you're worrying too much. I think Adrika said before that if anyone gets captured, she can bust them out overnight by tunneling into their cell (or climbing the wall if need be) and busting them out, and then they'd be camping in the forest with Lilah and Grumblejack to stay out of view.

I love this game and everyone in it as well, but yeah, right now, i can't get to you and even if i did any help i would give is detrimental with me having a -4 to Disguise so it wouldn't make sense to. Just know that the entire plan isn't riding on your shoulders here with no failsafes to fall back on -- the whole objective with what you're doing is just to understand the layout better, no need to kill anyone just yet ;)

Yeah I figured we were just kind of waiting for you to scout the place and report back, meanwhile once it's night I can do the same in the shadows and get the lie of how the fort inhabitants move around when it's dark. And then we can figure out an appropriate strtegy from there. Or something.

Okay its been two days, so Imma respond.


Adrika: I wish Adrika would communicate this in-game? If she has and I forgot I apologize, but I can't recall her saying as much nor planning on how that would do given the ravine. There are ways to plan it, but Carmen can help scout better if she knows to look for tunnel areas in particular.

Nothing: I wasn't aware you were waiting on me, I apologize. However, making this clearer in chat would be nice? As well, Nothing can communicate with Carmen, so you really can be commenting on anything that happens and I'd love extra input. I can't initiate in this situation, so I would like you to take the lead with this.

Considering Ashaia hasn't logged into the game since almost two months ago, I think it's fine to assume she's unable to; I'll leave her in as a player, to allow for her to come back if she can, but until then I'll be running her as an NPC. That'll probably help, but does mean that, right now, the team is only the three of you.

So, here is my first proposal for making things work better when a player has the spotlight and the others don't: even if a character isn't there, each one of you can post a question OOC about what's going on, to get other character's input on what to do, and I'll wait to update until the other people have answered - and I mean proper answers, I'd be quite cross with anybody who answered to their fellow player's request of help with "I don't know, do what you want". The player could already do what they wanted, if they're asking for help that means they need it, so give it. Just throw off whatever idea you have, so that a discussion can be had.

That might slow down the game's progression slightly, but I feel like it would make it much easier for any player to get past roadblocks, and make the idea of teamwork that the game is actually built around become far more central.

What's everybody's opinion on this idea?