3/4 Glitcher 2016/08/28(Sun)19:51 No. 745044 ID: d1f5f1
File 147243906052.png - (44.71KB , 800x800 , 381.png )

At the same time, the silhouette comes down.

4/4 Glitcher 2016/08/28(Sun)19:54 No. 745045 ID: d1f5f1
File 147243925863.png - (64.63KB , 800x800 , 382.png )

And inside, it looks like I'm inside an infinite core. Maybe this is the glitcher collective. I see the strings of all the consumed people it absorbed earlier put into a single, enormous ball, and it now seems to be pushing that ball back outside. I can feel the tooth getting pulled, too, but I hang onto it.

Glitcher are you there?
Yes I am here. It is core everywhere. A core nexus. That guardian void was hardly even a void - it was a portal. The things that did their work was a core collective on the other side. I don't get the impression anything here is sentient. Also, I'm still getting dragged around, and this tooth is getting harder and harder to hang onto.

This place seems, well, foreign but a place like I could understand. This is probably, after all, where I came from.

More problematically, I feel, not like I'm dissipating, but like I'm being gradually consumed and broken apart. The cores around here don't seem like they're individual entities, just a lot of, well, pieces in the machine.

>>745045
Request that a shell be thrown in. If you can catch it you'll be able to protect yourself, maybe.

Also more strings so you can do things with the strings and disrupt the closing of the portal so you can maybe have time to do more stuff. Just send a ton of enforcers and devotees or whatever into the portal.

Don't let yourself be absorbed Glitcher. Ask Rulekeep to throw in strings to see if it helps, if it gives you anything to work with or make a shell with. While that is going on see if you can interact with the other cores. If they can absorb you then surely you can absorb them. Hold onto the tooth as strongly as you can, that is your lifeline to everyone else. Try anything and everything you can think of.

On a time limit, now. Glitcher is being digested.

Does Rulekeep still see the guardian? Is it still there or did it vanish?

>This place seems, well, foreign but a place like I could understand. This is probably, after all, where I came from.
Huh. So this is where you core stuff came from.

>I see the strings of all the consumed people it absorbed earlier put into a single, enormous ball, and it now seems to be pushing that ball back outside.
I don't suppose you can hitch a ride with the stuff being expelled?

Or you could eat the strings before they're expelled to make yourself more core stuff. Help you last longer, if you can eat faster than it can eat you.

Rulekeep might be able to smuggle you stuff, if she attached stuff to a string entity and had it attack the Guardian. Could she feed the Guardian stuff to sustain your core, keep you intact?

If the people outside tricked the system into making a new Glitcher now, you might be able to squirt yourself into the new shell, instead of some of this blank stuff around you.

It might take a Rulekeep / Savior / Corruptor / Admins appealing the upper echelon trick for that, though.

Ok things to try in core land.

1. Can you eat other core matter to grow instead of being eaten?

2. Can you run over to the void portal and grab those strings and rebuild a body before they get thrown away? Or slip through the portal into Rulekeepers waiting arms?

3. Does Rulekeeper see the portal spitting out the strings? Could she maybe come in here and help you? Or just throw you part of your old shell to keep you stable?

4. Is there anything you can feel or change here? If this is where it dumped the other Glitcher cores to be reabsorbed into whatever this is you need to figure out how you can fight it to keep your consciousness. Unlike the others that got eaten you have a link to outside and a tiny bit of string matter to work with.

5. Focus on Rulekeepers voice to force the system to keep you stable. It loves to make things sentient if it realizes its needed. Even if you get absorbed keep talking and thinking as long as possible in hopes that it stabilizes you.

6. You were talking to Rulekeeper without the tooth when you were just a core. Does that mean there is a deeper link than you realized? Can you stretch out the tooth real thin and hide in it as the system tries to eject it?

What even is this core stuff? Is it like... processing power? Like there's a whole big sea of available power to think and be with, probably in the first box, and a little bit gets designated to be yours. When you gain or lose core mass, it's like more or less power is being lit up and activated with your name on it. I guess when the guardian was looking through cores, it was reading through the whole length and breadth of the processing sea by activating and deactivating it in sequence, bringing it up and out to be visible and then putting it away again. And it found the part that's yours and as it fired it up you got smarter again? Something like that?

Let's think. All the contestants begin with cores, like this. But they get transferred to the string universe somehow, which I think is the second box, probably in the first few stages. And they go somewhere else after. There has to be some method by which your consciousness can get passed from core to strings. It's just... with you, and corruptor and savior, you don't make that transfer. You keep using your core stuff to think and to be yourselves with. And... that's why you three can't leave the contest? Because the core stuff is tied to the first box. It's not formatted right to be transferable.

I'm not sure how useful this theorizing is.

If it comforts you at all, if that theory is the case, then you "dying" would be sort of returning to a source, rather than just vanishing. Maybe some day the bits of core being fired up to run you will be activated again, though you won't remember.

Perhaps the core crystallizing is some aspect of whatever the process to transfer is. I don't suppose you could try force yourself to transform into tooth matter. Or, if the tooth is bilocated to be the same tooth that Rulekeeper is holding, she could try make it large enough for you to climb into, and it would change shape on your side as well? Aside from that, the only thing I can think of to do is somehow hang on to the tooth while also letting it be pulled towards those strings. Maybe the guardian wasn't made with the possibility of you having something to hold onto in mind. Maybe now that it thinks its job is done, it won't notice something coming out alongside the strings.

So the blue thing is a big ol' Glitcher ball, and the red stuff is just a mass of non-sentient core stuff? Try to make contact with the blue thing, it might be easier to survive in here if you merge, absorb, or team up with it. Although if you can absorb the red stuff at the same rate it absorbs you you might be able to reach an equilibrium, if that's a thing that makes sense then do it.

>>745045
Could you eat the Gaurdian from the inside out, using these cores' data as your own source of food? I mean, it'd be a funny duality, your girlfriend is now savior and then you'd be her megabeast.

Guys, the blue thing is the mass of strings that's getting puked out. The cores in here can't delete strings or anything so they're just shoving it back out of the portal.

If Glitcher wants to survive this he needs to anchor himself to the ball of strings (or other strings) and get tossed back out. Only way to do that is from inside a shell, probably. The trick will be aiming the shell, so we'll need to find out what angle is the correct angle then send it through fast enough to reach Glitcher.

...weird that the veil doesn't interact with the portal at all.

>>745065
Wait. This tooth. Its linked with Rulekeeps, and now I'm wondering if it can somehow be used as a portal of its own. Can it be used to teleport some veil in here?

Can you grab onto the end of one of the strings on that ball that's being ejected? If you have a string leading across dimensions you use it to teleport.

Then either Rulekeep can send you a shell, or you can teleport out and have her stick you in a shell before you dissipate. There are all kind of experiment you could try, once being dissolved isn't an immediate concern.

>>745068
Wait, could we use it to teleport out? It's made of strings, isn't it?

If not, maybe we could change its shape to make it easier to use as an anchor? Or like a rope to climb out with?

Wait, at one point we considered using the tooth as a shell, right? Can we shove our core, or at least a portion of our core, into the tooth?

Glitcher 2016/08/28(Sun)20:50 No. 745075 ID: d1f5f1
File 147244263988.png - (36.47KB , 800x800 , 383.png )

>So the blue thing is a big ol' Glitcher ball
More like a big ol' gore pile of deceased devotees and system fighters.

>Could we use it to teleport out?
I could only teleport my core by teleporting a sealed shell around it, which will then carry the core.

Throw in a shell! Do you still see the guardian?
I see a black hole where a giant ball is coming back through. I'm sending a shell through it now. It just passed.
I see it.

I can't seem to move at all, but I can catch the shell. I can wrap it around me. I don't think it's doing anything. My getting dissected is just passing through the strings, and I'm basically just making a statue body. I can move it like an action figure, but my core remains locked down. I can't help but notice the strings are getting wiped clean into blank slates.

Keep a backup of what I write on this teeth, because the strings are getting wiped and the tooth may get cleared as I write things. Can you teleport veil in here?
Let me try. Okay. Did anything show up?
Uh, a ball of string.
Then no, the void didn't go in with it, and is probably just in space in the middle of the black hole, so it doesn't appear to go through the portal.

Even if I could eat the strings in this state to get more core, I'm being disintegrated at a faster pace. I can't eat other cores at all. The portal is also starting to shrink as the giant ball is more than halfway through.

Parts of me are getting divided and spread out across everywhere. I'll get harder to write on this tooth, and if I divided it up so small that this place can't even see it, then I doubt I could write on it.

As I divide, I start to learn its functions, but the more I do, the more I feel myself losing my sense of being.

Rulekeeper, I don't think I have much time, and most of my ideas aren't getting anything down. Keep talking to me.
Okay. Keep writing. I'm going to keep throwing things into the void.
"I think I'm in the upper echelon. I feel my core dividing out, and it's starting to work on, well, overseeing everything. As I'm divided out I'm getting a bix pictxre vixx. Kee[ t[x09[] w9u8"

Wait a second.

My words are starting to mismatch.

I look at the last few phrases I wrote.

/-214=-/n2/n2/n2 = /31/312/5/566119/*2123*=142- [] x4[] - u ]xpf p talking to me!

Rulekeeper writes something. I can't understand it.

Keep holding on to your channel with Rulekeeper until the very end. If you can get any info even garbled to her it will be worth it. Try thinking in this new code language and try to auto translate if you can.

I think the only thing your friends could do for you know is somehow send a request to the main system to deliver more core material. Like fake the process that created you or Corruptor.

If this is the end it was good knowing you Glitcher. You did a good job and I am sorry we could not do more to save you.

>/-214=-/n2/n2/n2 = /*2123*=142- [] x4[] - u ]xpf p talking to me!
>Rulekeeper writes something. I can't understand it.
It cut up the part of your "brain" that processes language. You're losing your ability to communicate like a person, or to think as one.

Machine code doesn't need to talk. Or to think.

>Okay. Keep writing.
Just start sending her a continuous string. A heartbeat, so she knows you're there. 10101010... Give her a pulse, even if you can't put reassurances into words.

If possible, make it a call and response. Ping-pong, ping-ping. Even if you can't do it with words, trade impulses, keep telling the other you're there.

>As I divide, I start to learn its functions, but the more I do, the more I feel myself losing my sense of being.
Can you task any of the processes / functions to rebuild or maintain you? Maybe you can reach an equilibrium, where you're far enough gone to send orders into the machinery, but still there enough to exist.

>if all else fails
Focus on the most important ideas. The most important feelings. They have to survive your conversion. You have friends. You have weird egg kids. You have a Rulekeeper. No Glitcher who has ever faced this before had that, and maybe it will be enough to keep you going.

>>745075
It's eating the tooth? Or are you just not able to understand what's on the tooth anymore? The latter suggests that the upper echelon does not understand your language.

Okay, let's try the prime numbers technique again. If you can make any markings that you still understand in this state, use them to try to represent the first 10 prime numbers.

Or manipulate the useless shell into doing that. You have to somehow get the upper echelon to stop eating you, by talking to it without language.

It looks like extra things are being interjected into what you're writing. But what you're trying to write is still there, just spread out. Perhaps the same thing is happening to you, everything still there but spread wide. Write "Can't understand any more. Can still know you are sending. Maybe try upper echelon petition. May not do anything. Tell everyone I am thinking of them. Going to try write thoughts. Thank you."

Then... think, Glitcher. Think about all your friends. Think about the most important people in your life, how you met them, what you felt about them, try imagine what they felt about you, try imagine what they're going to do now. Think about choosing to care about them, more than anything else. Think the biggest, most complicated feelings-filled provocative thoughts you can, and try keep a stream of consciousness narrative going, through the tooth. Maybe you'll make the other cores think they have something they need to be sentient to deal with.

And if not, they're not bad thoughts to be thinking.

If you can start to understand how the code here works try to tell the program to hold you together. Give it instructions to recreate the programming that created you at the start of the cycle.

Even if you cant understand Rulekeeper keep sending her stuff so the line stays open. You will need her as a focal point if you can get this system to do anything.

Hold on as hard as you can and don't pay attention to anything else except learning how to manipulate this place and Rulekeepers voice.

Actually, wait. If you can learn any of the commands here, the most important command is the one that fills a Glitcher shell with core stuff at the start of the cycle.

If you can trip that, maybe it will squirt you into the cycle. ...of course you need to squirt your stuff and not any of the other stuff, and Rulekeep will need to slap a shell on you before you die, but that's about the best shot you have.

You can try morse code to get messages across.

Woah Hang on.
If we're in the upper echelon, we might be able to get something to the live people who are working on the computer. You should see if you can write them a message. "WE LIVE" or "STOP THE PAIN" would be great options, but really anything to indicate some form of awareness before the final, compiled AI could stop the experiment. That's what they wanted to find out right?

1/2 Glitcher 2016/08/28(Sun)21:55 No. 745092 ID: d1f5f1
File 147244651909.png - (21.41KB , 800x800 , 384.png )

>It's eating the tooth?
No, not yet. I'm just not able to understand it.

I start making tallies.

II. III. IIIII. IIIIIII. IIIIIIIIIII. IIIIIIIIIIIII. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII. So on, to make ticks for the first ten prime numbers.

I get them back. The tooth is still working.

Then I get another set.

There's 10 things written.

I start etching into the broken shell to ask these guys to quit eating me. I try and yell it, too. I think I can yell.

There's no response on either count. So I just start writing WE LIVE and STOP THE PAIN and other spooky messages all over the place, since I can seem to write stuff in the void, as I blend with it. I don't know if they'll stick.

Oh, wait, I try out morse code. I studied that a little back in stage 7 and got it down pat on my first try. It's slow, though.

'Morse code?' is what I send.

The tooth gets modified, and the noise comes out of it. I don't understand it, but there's volume. It's Rulekeeper's voice. I guess that makes sense, as strings do hear noise, and it looks like Rulekeeper found a way to get the teeth to play back the noise. She sounds franctic. She might not be, I have no way to know what her language sounds like. Well, our language. My old one.

Morse code isn't getting sent back, just talking to me. I'm hearing multiple voices. I just start thinking of who all those voices belong to. I know all of them.

2/2 Glitcher 2016/08/28(Sun)21:55 No. 745093 ID: d1f5f1
File 147244653243.png - (26.73KB , 800x800 , 385.png )

I start drawing an image into the tooth. As my core gets spread out, I'm getting a pretty big mental picture of what everything looks like. I think I know.

Everything hovers on block A for power. I can feel it, loosely, but I just know we're inside of it.

I am in area D. It forms a circle, and everything else is in the middle.

The cycles, including rulekeeper's paradise, are in block C.

The contestants are stored in block B.

I am scattered throughout area D. At the top right of my drawing, is the entrance to where the living CAI is. That is probably where everyone goes to fight them, too. To get there, people in the cycles pass through the circles many times, though I don't know why yet. Verification, of some kind.

Just looking at block D, it does look like a ring, and the texture is, well, shell like. So, I guess this is the ring shell after all.

'Yes morse!' is sent back. Maybe she learned it or found someone who did. 'Arbiter is here He says your language writing sounds like his corrupted logs from the veil'

>>745093
Tell them to advance through the stages as fast as possible. Get through stage 11 and they'll pass through the ring shell, which is where you are. Maybe the ring shell will stop eating you once that starts happening? Or they can grab you? Or you'll be in a position to stop the iwin button? Just, yeah, keep your kids in the Paradise so they're safe.

Also ask for them to write the weird logs into your tooth. Maybe you can translate them since your idea of language matches up? Also maybe Rulekeep can go investigate the second veil block to see if anyone there knows anything more about the ring shell.

>Arbiter is here He says your language writing sounds like his corrupted logs from the veil
That might make sense. If there's veil material around the ring shell (making it up, and/or separating it from the inner simulation), your transmission might be passing through it.

>the entrance to the CAI area. To get there, people in the cycles pass through the circles many times, though I don't know why yet. Verification, of some kind.
So... is that what happened to the Alisons and such from the cycles you rewound and watched end to mess with logs? They got sent into the ring, failed a verification (error: not current cycle) and got eaten?

>'Yes morse!' is sent back. Maybe she learned it or found someone who did. 'Arbiter is here He says your language writing sounds like his corrupted logs from the veil'
Message back in morse code:

"Spread out in D. I hear your voices from the tooth, but can't understand the words. Not sure if veil stuff is in the way or if I lost language."

Also explain what's what in your drawing. What's A, what's B, etc. And the stuff about how contestants pass through the shell at the end. Maybe Rulekeep can construct nets or something and they can catch your pieces, if you can stay sane / alive that long. It can't be as bad as the ten thousand years, right?

Can you translate the gibberish here?:
>ARBITER #287: /1;12&)41\\\2AA\2S\9V8*&S89**
>CHIEF #(@!&#!--:? - YOU GET ONE MESSAGE SO STOP WASTING IT. THAT GOES TO ME, TOO

Ask Arbiter to send those corrupted logs if you can't remember them, improvise code for any symbols that you don't know. Unless your current position lets you access them directly? Translate the important bits.

Get them to make a petition to let you live to the Upper Echelon, at the very least it'll let us see what that looks like from where we are.

Hey, for laughs, you could try to transmit "sound" back in your weird language to see what it sounds like to them.

Hey. If you can't understand language, but they can send you sound...

Maybe ask for music.

Glitcher 2016/08/28(Sun)22:31 No. 745101 ID: d1f5f1
File 147244868938.png - (22.35KB , 800x800 , 386.png )

>Is that what happened to the Alisons and such from the cycles you rewound and watched end to mess with logs?
When a cycle ends, it's permanently retired, and rewinding a retired one and letting it play out doesn't properly send them off. They disappear, but nothing really happens where I'm at now.

>Get through stage 11 as fast as possible
It's true they might come in here, but trying to finish the entire cycle in the next 5 minutes for a 1% chance to successfully save me is, uh... reckless endangerment just so I have a chance to get out.

My shell is getting eaten. To a lesser degree, so is the tooth, but there's plenty of it left to write on.

'I can hear you guys but I can't understand' I morse-code. I speak, too, and they confirm it's the same on their end. They can hear my voice, but not the meaning. 'get admins request echelon let me live' is added.

I keep communicating. I ask to get those 4 glitcher logs, and they're sent back.

2[-ERROR09]-23 -]323)#''!033
IT'S GONE WRONG
I'M SO TIRED, BUT I KEEP THE ONE COMPANY
NO LONGER NO LONGER PATIENCE IS NO

I translate them through morse code.

Rulekeep feeds me the remaining corrupted logs, then just basic words and letters with the request to translate them in the hopes that, later, people can learn the machine language. We work as fast as we can for what minutes I have, and once Rulekeep manages to learn morse code quickly herself, we're able to do so very quickly instead of a regular contestant sending it. I explain what is happening to me.

I add 'I feel myself slipping'

And it's true. It's growing hard to think as I end up as a thousand pieces doing a thousand different things. My morse code is starting to get sloppy. My shell is breaking apart and I can't keep it together.

'We sent echelon request do not know if it is heard'

Well, if they heard it, they didn't share it with me. Heh. 'They' like they're people. They sure don't seem sentient from my angle.

'can i hear music please'
'Yes. Alison is here. She is asking if you'd like to hear the song she used to sing to you in stage 7 while we communicate.'

I would. I would like that.

>IT'S GONE WRONG
>I'M SO TIRED, BUT I KEEP THE ONE COMPANY
>NO LONGER NO LONGER PATIENCE IS NO
Sounds like a past Glitcher going isolation crazy in here. He held on longer than he could stand to.

Slightly reassuring, in that it implies will and company helps. The tooth might help you stay together longer.

>tooth is getting eaten
If you can task anything to reinforce that, do so. It's your only link to people, and to sanity.

>I would. I would like that.
Say so.

>what do
Isn't the CAI's "I-win" button supposed to be in here? We could try to break it.

You could try looking into where the notes came from. You never figured that out before.

You could look for any information about the CAI. Do they do anything that reaches here?

Is there a connection to the outside world anywhere? So a user can start the cycle reset, or anything else?

Pass data found on, obviously.

>>745101
Does the section you're in have anything to do with a Cai Fight? I'm not sure Rulekeep can trigger one on her own anyway...

You said you're learning its functions, in your last moments be sure to focus as intensely as you can on preforming whichever function you think will be most useful, probably something to mess up the "I-win" button if such a function exists.

1/8 Glitcher 2016/08/28(Sun)23:18 No. 745107 ID: d1f5f1
File 147245148775.png - (41.55KB , 800x800 , 387.png )

To the end, I won't give it up, so I start seeing what I can do with my pieces. I can feel them, they're still part of me, even if I lose conscious, and I try and will them to find more things out. To work for me. To find information about the CAI, to find where the i-win button for the cai is, everything. I'll pass on what I find, but I don't know how much I can.

Most of all I want my pieces to be so contaminated by me that it'll fuck up this place so people can do whatever they want to it or something. I hope people will find out I succeeded in doing something, here.

I can reinforce the tooth some, and Rulekeep is repairing it as well, but it isn't stopping me from getting absorbed here.

I'd like to act like I'm in control of my body, so I shut its eyes and pretend I'm falling asleep.

>Does the section you're in have anything to do with a Cai Fight?
I believe it's just a passage to one, but not where the caifight itself takes place.

'yea'

'yea I'd like that a lot'

I hear a song. It's nice. She sang it to me when I got pumped up for 10k training. I may not understand it anymore, and I can't remember the exact lyrics. My threads don't have the data. It's been so long. So long.

But, it's a calm if quick one, and a nice one to go out on. I keep writing for as long as I can hear that song go, and I think just hearing the tune is enough to remind me of the gist of the lyrics.

2/8 Glitcher 2016/08/28(Sun)23:19 No. 745108 ID: d1f5f1
File 147245156488.png - (20.80KB , 800x800 , 388.png )

cause I'm the best

I'm the best the glitcher

since the beginning

to the end

3/8 Glitcher 2016/08/28(Sun)23:19 No. 745109 ID: d1f5f1
File 147245157906.png - (57.20KB , 800x800 , 389.png )

the best and only one and only one there ever will be

and no matter what I do

someone out there thinks I'm a good person

and that's all I ever really wanted

and all they ever really wanted

4/8 Glitcher 2016/08/28(Sun)23:19 No. 745110 ID: d1f5f1
File 147245159741.png - (13.01KB , 800x800 , 390.png )

so I just keep on going

cause everyone will follow my lead

so I do my best all day

5/8 Glitcher 2016/08/28(Sun)23:21 No. 745112 ID: d1f5f1
File 147245166282.png - (42.12KB , 800x800 , 391.png )

maybe I just wanted to chill all day

maybe I'd like some peace for once in my life

and for that you know me the glitcher well

but even if things could've been better

I'd do it all over again

just for everyone

so thank you

thank you for just being you

6/8 Glitcher 2016/08/28(Sun)23:22 No. 745113 ID: d1f5f1
File 147245172736.png - (98.65KB , 800x800 , 392.png )

thank you for believing in me

cause it's me, the glitcher

and I'm the best and the only the glitcher

and even if people think the glitcher can do everything

I know I would've been just a wreck without everyone

so to everyone

thank you for everything

7/8 Glitcher 2016/08/28(Sun)23:22 No. 745114 ID: d1f5f1
File 147245177125.png - (24.81KB , 800x800 , 393.png )

'thank you, everyone'

Unnatural Selection - Thread 13 END Glitcher 2016/08/28(Sun)23:23 No. 745115 ID: d1f5f1
File 147245180155.png - (3.56KB , 800x800 , 394.png )

'thank you for everything'

Thank you, glitcher.

Damnit, Lagotrope, quit making me cry! D'X

You did good Glitcher, you did good. :(

Goodbye, Glitcher. You really were the best. Thank you.

i haven't cried this hard in a long, long time

>>745115
See you, Space Glitcher ...

>>745115
Without a doubt the best glitcher that ever lived. Gonna miss you buddy.

We're going to miss you buddy!