((If he is willing, Jack is Glitch's GM in this dream that Jack is having. Glitch is a character in Jack's dream(s). Jack may or may not be in the dream - that's up to him as GM.  The All is telling me through synchronicities to take a day off and rest my mind, so I wanted to leave you guys with a way to keep playing while I'm away, and be able to take something away from it that I may not have thought of.))

Upon awakening, the first thing that occurs to Glitch is the orderly nature of her mind. There is no Glitch-Hive, there is only the silence, and as her eyes pan over the area she begins to understand. Each of her sub-minds has been separated by partitions of void and rune-etched transparent material that resists all attempts at piercing.  Her partition has a plain cot, a bookshelf filled with leather-bound books, and a circle covered with runes.  In the distance, massive analog clock filled with cogs and complex workings twitches between seconds. Click-click-click. It’s currently 5:38.

Her clothing has been replaced with a black and white striped outfit made of silk.

A jail.

Even as she might be considering her next action, a voice fills the cell: “Prisoner Orientation at 0700.” The voice is ever present, felt down into the soul.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 19:21, Thu 21 Apr 2022.

The Quietness, the staleness, the imprisonment. She felt the webs around her closing in, choking, strangling her. Her mind broke and she raptures. Her human form gives way to the were-rat one as she tore at the silk and bedding with her claws and knocked the bookshelf over, or least raked the books off there shelf and she threw herself at the bars gnawing on them. Normally it was one of the easiest of gifts for a rat to gnaw it's way through just about any material, rather she could in this dream or not wasn't clear.... but it didn't stop her from trying till she got free or her mind calmed down and her destructive impulses ended.

The transparent solid panes provide little purchase for gnawing, and when she claws at them they don’t even make noise. They simply absorb the energy and she gets the distinct impression that every attack makes them stronger as they reinforce using the energy of the attack, and grow more resistant to that particular form of damage.

When she turns back to her room, it has reset back to zero, and a fresh uniform is laying on her bed. The books are back in their shelves, unmolested.

Looking through the glass, she can see all manner of responses from others. Each one slightly different, but in some ways similar. In the distance, she can see beings she feels not even the tingling of connection to. Aliens in bizarre colorations, men in black suits with pale skin stretched tight over their bones, folks in billowing robes and broad-brimmed floppy hats, Cthulhu in the distance is somehow bearable to gaze upon through the heavily runed intermediary so vast that it dominates all of one direction even through the thousands of cells between her and it, even some “cells” seem to be filled with static objects. A well with a bucket perched on the rim stands in a room very similar to her own.

Oh, and the clowns.

As her mind calms she composes herself some. She tried to use open seal to free herself, to shatter what ever seals, locks, and barriers that may be keeping her from freedom..... Failing that she took a human form and changed back.... something here was doing this and had her caged, she should not attract to much attention.

If she was free she explored, if not she examined the runes looking for patterns and searched through the books.

There might be a touch of an effect for the briefest of moments, it’s hard to be certain because the moment passes almost instantly. The effects of her abilities are absorbed and the runes shift slightly across the jail-scape, a slight adjustment to the parameters, adding a few small contradictory effects to the already incredible dense tapestry of runic inscriptions. As she eyes the runes for a moment, Glitch can see that each rune is composed of countless smaller runes, and each of those is more still. Runes all the way down.

The books are assorted. “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and “Being a Good Prisoner” and “Make A Better You!” are just some of the titles. All of them are self-help reflection guides in her language of choice and are exactly as described. Filled with words of reflection and structured to help Glitch become “the best version of herself.”

She abandoned the books and moved to the runes, they where complicated, to complicated for there own good.

She spent the next two and half hours studying them and looking them over. Runes affecting runes affecting runes. This could be used agents itself.... her nature might make her impatient and destructive now and again in a situation like this but she would keep coming back to it. Her field of study wasn't exactly centralized on programing when she was a human scientist but she could probably make these runes into a program if she could understand them better.

Not before 0700 saddly.....

Not in a billion years could these runes make sense and not in an infinite span of time, could she begin to “reprogram” them as she is now, she would need to change herself and grow herself to a level beyond what she is now. She’d need to be like Cthulhu in the distance, a personification of power bent to a single purpose, and even then... They change and adjust and move, and inside each rune is another combination that shifts as fast as her mind could begin to process what she’d seen, now replaced with a whole new combination of wholly new runes doing something completely different. They are deliberately obtuse, and covered by a plane of Force magic. The only reason she interacted with them to begin with was her attempted magic had caused a small ripple, the tiniest ripple at the point of insertion, and not in a way that breaks the system, but in a way that caused the system to adapt to her particular signature. Reducing even that ripple to a nothing.

As the massive clock passes 0600, a chime rings out which causes certain beings of Chaos to ripple in discomfort.

An hour later the clock strikes again to a similar note of Orderly change, and the ring of runes on the floor lights up. The ever-present soul shaking voice speaks: “New prisoners to orientation.” And there is a feeling of increasing gravity in the room as it slowly starts to urge the people within to move.

She was not pleased with this, this place was wrong in more ways than she could count. But the order here was not absolute, it could change and adapt.... rather because it was only reacting in turn with it's programing and it was not yet complete, or because it had enough choas in it to adapt and change she did not know. But this place was not yet stagnate and falling into stasis. She did not know if she could work these weaves back on themselves.... she needed the nucular option, she needed a twitcher. Her conection to the weaver and order was mirrored by there connection to the wyld and chaos.... they where rage and fire and brutal destructive change. But she was separated from herself, she would have to find her twitcher or any twitcher she could or some sorta substitute.

She needed something that could call in the swarm of crawling chaos to overwhelm the reactive systems here. Hell anything that could bring froth an overwhelming number of unpredictable subjects into this system would do but she also needed to find this places heart.

Restoring balance, bringing back the flow of life, meant more than just setting herself free. She had to brake the suffocating hold on this place least it fall into stasis and die.

For now she followed the pull, watching where she went and keeping an eye on all those that went with her.

A handful of others seem to be being drawn in to their circles, only a handful of them resisting, before they are dumped into the circle and disappear as suddenly as they stepped inside the confines of the rune circle. When Glitch steps inside, she is similarly moved. There are no particle effects or feelings of movement, she simply ceases to be at point a and is now at point b. Though she has a vague feeling that she was in a corkscrew-manner, someway to her right, now her left, now inside of herself. The point of origin shifting at all times along a path of Orderly Chaos. Pre-ordained but unpredictable.

Her destination is an identical cell, but now her cell is side to side with a thousand other cells holding vast and unwieldy beings of might who constantly throw their most powerful magics, technology and WILL at their cells, and more ripples are expanding, and with each ripple, the runes adapt and enhance themselves.

Suddenly, a vast face appears the size of a star, composed of runes and clouds of ambient magic.

“Prisoners. For one <spoonful> every third <purple> you will have shared pseudo-time with entities of similar capabilities and soul entanglement; barring membrane disruption or causality dislocation.  During this time prisoners will also be allowed to partake of improvement exercises, mass consumption, and games of chance! However, be aware that disruption of membrane continuity will result in 10th order nullification, and dispersal into psychoactive containment glue for the duration of your stay.

The library is available and can be accessed through the bookshelves in your cells.

Please enjoy your stay.”

There is a terrible feeling of force then as every prisoner in orientation is captured by their respective rings and reappears in their original cells. Or at least they seem to be their original cells, because where before she had recognized some of the adjacent cells as containing some of her own sub-minds, now there is nothing familiar. Only the presence of the Cthulhu and other vast beings gives any sense of location. Her neighbors are now different, and her cell is now faintly colored cyan.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:30, Thu 21 Apr 2022.

She grumbles a bit, well this wasn't going to be easy.

There library... she wondered if this meant there entire library or just sanctioned books... likely the later but it was worth the try as she tried to pull books other than self help books.... if that didn't work, she tried self help books on the betterment of yourself in education on runes.

All along chitterlings to see if the echos helped her maze mind map out the place in her head.

She already keep track of all she saw but now she was some where else, or was she? Did the people around her just move...  did it mater?  This place likely had several several repeated layouts.

But mapping it out in her head was important.

It was a good thing it was almost impossible for her to be lost and she could map out the most complicated of places just by listening and looking around.

Hopefully she could get something usefull though the library though as it was the only means of getting anything besides destroying things and getting replacements.

The flow of time in the cell can be counted by the persistent faint click of the clock as it turns. Though the numbers on the face of the clock shift from time to time, reflecting alien time-lines that absolutely no sense to anyone but those of that particular culture, though a bit of foot-tapping and a person’s innate sense for time might begin to make sense of it. Until the clock goes backwards or spins randomly to other points with no rhyme or reason.

Flashing purple at one point, the clock ripples and that chime sounds. Causing disruption of certain entities, while others are YOINKed into their circles of displacement and disappear.

The books in the library seem to be endless, including runes, and even a book entitled, “How I Intend to Escape the Endless Prison!” followed by a book called, “How I Failed to Escape the Endless Prison” and finally “My Hubris.” Each written millions of years apart by some sort of code breaking, prison-cracking, maze-sense having super being. The first book records every movement, every time-change, ever manner of shifting rune for hundreds of years in exacting details, the book is as thick as her torso, and dense with charts and tables.

The second book is much shorter and explains how the prison may have been escapable for someone of his quality and skill an infinite span of time ago, when the place was new, or maybe not, because as far as the author can tell, the prison is a looping time span, so maybe it was never less adapted.  As it goes on, it posits new ways the Houdini has come up with to escape, and its intent to try them.

The final book is about ten pages long and is a simple book of philosophy and how “Houdini” came to understand himself through his attempts to escape.

Gets an idea..... but it's best saved for later... There language is the langage of Rat a child of the wyld and is a part of his infinite mind. If she wrote a book and put it into the library, and the place tried to read the book and understand it..... woooo boy would that fuck with this place. The infinite complexity of a godlike language born in chaos changing but not changing the meaning of every bit having different meanings in different context and those meaning not even necessarily ever the same.  Well it could likely figure it out after a little bit of time studying it, the runes where where much the same after all, but if it tried to this whole place could come screeching to a halt while it did it if she was lucky. But that would be saved.

For now she skimmed the escape books to figure out the lay of this place and how it worked, what didn't work, the book on Houdini finding himself she discarded.

She had been in situations worse than this and had to find herself once already when her mind was invaded by hundreds of spirits making her but a small voice in a sea of voices. A voice that didn't know itself was one that just got washed away in the chaos. She was forced to actualize herself or be lost in that madness.... she didn't need a book to tell her about that.

Yes she lashed out a few times in her captivity, but it was because her connection to the spirits let her feel ever so closely the thick choking order around her, in the very air like it was trying to weave her into the very background of reality..... or at least that's how it felt some times. Combine that with all the pent up energy she had and well, yah.  More she got it out though the less it happened and the more in control of herself she was.

Her problem was the other people here, they seamed less controlled, less rational. When they where 'orientated' they where all lashing out at the face even though they knew they couldn't get to it. She wasn't sure if they would be much help other than distractions.

Some time later, the clock has flashed <purple> again twice and a voice sounds out in her cell: Prisoner, if you wish to join in extracellular activity, step into the transfer portal.

She sits up and steps into the circle... getting out of the cell even for a little bit was a good thing.

Moving into the circle, Glitch suddenly finds herself in a new location, and all sense of space outside is lost. There is no direction sense telling her where she came from, in here. The cell walls have been pushed out and warped in a non-euclidean manner, but are still covered in rivers and oceans of runic combinations. No magic or technology has so much as a touch of an effect here, save to keep those who depend on it to live, alive.

In the room with her are seven others. Making two groups of four.

The Hollow Man: One of those pale stretched skin men wearing a black suit and fedora, its features are skeletal and eye sockets are hollow, it stands unmoving but there is a sense that it is looking at everyone present.

A Plushy: that seems to be looking around with big glass eyes and starts to amble toward one of the walls.

Hoody Boy: A plain looking human man in a hoody, now reading from a small book, glances up a few times and then goes over toward one of the benches. He seems to be pleased to just be walking around.

The Clown: A clown with long pointed teeth is staring around, looking for someone to react to it.

The Devil: A red horned man wearing a suit and cape immediately starts looking around at the provided games which are laid out on tables, as well as the furniture. Picking up a deck of cards, it starts to shuffle them between its hands.

The Succubus: A female version of the devil, with batwings. She’s wearing an identical suit to the devil, but doesn’t have the cape. Pulling a monocle out of her pocket, she starts to examine the walls.

The Boy: A young boy who looks terrified.

The clown, seeing the reaction of the boy, starts to stalk toward him.

Her maze mind works in non-euclidean spaces, though bad enough it will slow it down.

She is starting to get the idea that this place is made up of the runes completely... damaging them to bad might be dangerous but not sure they had a choice.

She quickly moved though to stand between the kid and the clown her ears pulling back noticing the clowns preditorial reaction, showing her teeth.

If she got it to leave she would try and comfort the kid. "You ok?"

“Now it won’t taste good!” the Clown grumbles and turns to walk away immediately, put off by the flavor her action provides. Going over to the table, it takes a seat and starts to set up a board of Chinese Checkers.

The kid looks up at Glitch and goes wide-eyed.

“You’re a giant rat!” the boy yells.

She wiggles her ears side to side, and her wiskers trying to look a little amusing for the kid. "sure am!" She kneels down to his level, wrapping around him to get on all fours if he's comfortable with it. "Maybe you should stay in your cell if your scared.... though we-.. I am not sure why you would be in a place like this." She wondered if this place was just collecting everything it didn't understand.... that was worse than she thought.

“Nah, I’m not scared,” the kid says and uses his, sleeve on his nose a little, wiping away some of the snot that’d formed there and then rubbing at his eyes. “What are you doing here anyway? You’re different from everyone else, there’s fuzzy stuff on your inside glow,” he assesses with bright blue eyes as he takes a seat, his eyes looking over the interior.

"Fuzzy stuff you say?" she smiles some "They a little spiky hummmm?" she smiles petting his hair. "I don't know, so you see the truth in things or just people?" Ether way she says "That must be hard."

 The boy simply nods, he can’t really explain what he sees more than he already has, he lacks the knowledge of how to explain what he can see. Rubbing at his nose a bit more, he hops over Glitch’s side and walks over to the table where the Devil is playing cards.