>>/quest/541842
I assume that because our PoV is Beth, who's never been Radula'd, she can't see the eye thing.

>>76379

Reality hinders his future sight, the same way it keeps the Cacophany asleep. Plus the book wasn't just buried; it was buried/devoured by a dying otherworldly horror who may or may not be predictable. I can't help but mention that Tiamat looked an awful lot like a tapeworm, which is a relative of the leech. Radula may have bitten off more than he could chew.

>>76383
But I thought that Mary saw Dale's dark eyes, back when he was first examined. Back when she had him try on the polarized sunglasses.

>>76409
Naw, she put two and two together. Dale said he could see the toxin as black, and his own eyes as black, and Todd's eyes as black.

Whoa. It's got all Civilization 1 intro in here.

Pretty awesome, dude.

>>/quest/544593
Read the Intermission; it's events from that:
>>/questarch/535009

>>76891

I know. Beth doesn't though.

Anonymous 2013/10/18(Fri)21:04 No. 76899 ID: c23ab0
File 138215544861.jpg - (55.05KB , 680x533 , beth_reads_the_third_page.jpg )

And I thought the third page would be about the future!

Toxoglossa 2013/10/19(Sat)14:40 No. 76918 ID: 5acad3
File 138221884841.jpg - (863.02KB , 600x9827 , thebook of worms.jpg )

Here's all 5 pages of the BoW stitched together, nearly 10k pixels tall

>>76918
It may sound odd, but scrolling through that it almost composed it's own musical score in my head.

I find it somewhat terrifying that you are THIS GOOD at making stories about horrible elder things and their cuddlefish servants, and making art to go along with it.

Seriously, why the fuck are cuddlefish so god damn alien? Even among sea creatures, not counting the black depth dwelling fuckers of course.

>>77120
>cuddlefish
The anti-Radula!

This is some fantastic art. You should collect this into a comic book when it's done.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy paperdoll.

Ever since we read the book it seems like the pacing has slowed down a lot.

Is this on purpose?

Toxoglossa 2013/12/06(Fri)16:51 No. 78304 ID: 5acad3

>>78292
Not intentionally, but I'm definitely spending more time drawing the panels, which eats up time. Also, I realize that its been pretty dialogue heavy recently, and I want for there to be plenty of room for suggestions to dictate the flow of things. That means I have to do a lot of smaller updates, and they take a while to write. I'm trying to keep things moving at a decent clip though and minimize the fucking around. Its slow but important stuff, since a lot of action sequences are dictated as much by what happens, as they are by decisions made before hand.

 

Useful information about our enemy

Anonymous 2014/01/18(Sat)15:42 No. 79132 ID: 3c0449
File 139008856246.jpg - (57.62KB , 422x344 , raddle.jpg )

why this hadn't been posted yet is beyond me

hah, I just realized that this quest represents life itself. see, the Cacophony is real life, the in-quest Universe is tgchan, and Radula is our moms constantly telling us to move out of her basement and get a job.

well played, Toxoglossa. I almost didn't see that.

>giant librarian Mantis Shrimp
Sonoluminescence for a reading light!

>>79132
Obviously Radula just wants to cuddle, cuddle with the whole universe.

>>79814
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5FEj9U-CJM
It reads so hard the universe CAN'T HANDLE IT

Hey guys when we killed radula we killed all instances of Radula because of that time singularity where everything is headed.
Something that could destroy Radula's infiniteness was a thing that he said that even the Chorus would be concerned with. So, yeah, that was the exact moment in time where all Radula's converged to one and he got whacked.
And then there was another warning sign that this was the bad thing to do because the Cacophony stirred when Radula got burned, Legion was all "Time is short" which means that event probably happened in enough timelines that it disturbed the Cacophony's sleep and that Radula's health was linked with the Cacophony's slumber.

But like I said in the thread it probably just is another Tower-like event that wakes the Cacophoy's hunger and NOT the whole kitten caboodle. If we think about it, there must have been a timeline convergence at that point in time where the book came into the world and all timelines. If Radula ever looked into the book before that point from his infinite perspective it probably looked similar to the Black Hole that Beth saw.
The fact that reality didn't get eaten in the tower scenario means that it is possible for causality to come and bounce back. We're at a point in time where everything that happens happens at once.

I just want to bounce this off a few people before I take this to the main thread. I think we need to get the book and everyone that's asleep out the library FAST! I think Radula just wanted to get the book to the cacophony. Radula doesn't need to be alive for the universe to end; only the book needed to be delivered. By letting Dale go into the library, We've played into Radulas game.

what do you guys think?

that was Thunderpeep's idea, so unless he was working with Radula, no we didn't.

Since Toxoglossa will be answering questions, (at least I think that's what you said at the end of the quest) I have one about themes.

This is one of the first cosmic horror stories that wasn't a comedy that has a happy ending and we essentially completely broke down and drove a horror insane at the end. Did you forsee a likely happy ending like this? Or did you really want to make a cosmic story where it turns out that, hey, these so called greater, inconceivable beings aren't that unstoppable after all. Essentially, you created an antithesis to Lovecraft thesis, which I believe is that some unknown's are dangerous and are meant to be left alone lest we destroy ourselves in the process.

Also, speaking of lovecraft (I don't know if you dislike the comparisons at all so if they do annoy you I apologize), did that universe have the Cthulhlu mythos as entertainment pieces or is it like The Walking Dead where no zombie culture ever developed and no reference could ever be made.

I was just curious because if someone bought Dale a Cthulhu plush with W's custom stitched in the eyes as a joke for all they've been through, that might be a little funny. And that can only be possible if cosmic horror pop culture actually exists in-universe.

>>81191
>This is one of the first cosmic horror stories that wasn't a comedy that has a happy ending and we essentially completely broke down and drove a horror insane at the end. Did you forsee a likely happy ending like this? Or did you really want to make a cosmic story where it turns out that, hey, these so called greater, inconceivable beings aren't that unstoppable after all. Essentially, you created an antithesis to Lovecraft thesis, which I believe is that some unknown's are dangerous and are meant to be left alone lest we destroy ourselves in the process.

From very early on I was hoping to use the leech in Dale's head as a kind of Chekhov's gun for beating the Cacophony. I'm not sure when the idea of using it to put it to sleep and then slowly lobotomizing came into play, but it wasn't until fairly late in the story.

I did want to make it a theme that even horrible nightmares from beyond imagining are fairly vulnerable, and being actually kind of frail because they aren't a product of a natural universe. Radula ended up being kind of a baby about things, which is honestly something you find in even the most vicious of predators.

>Also, speaking of lovecraft (I don't know if you dislike the comparisons at all so if they do annoy you I apologize), did that universe have the Cthulhlu mythos as entertainment pieces or is it like The Walking Dead where no zombie culture ever developed and no reference could ever be made.

>I was just curious because if someone bought Dale a Cthulhu plush with W's custom stitched in the eyes as a joke for all they've been through, that might be a little funny. And that can only be possible if cosmic horror pop culture actually exists in-universe.

I imagine either the Lovecraft mythos or something like it would be present in their world, but I never really made much reference to it besides calling things cthonic every once in a while. I did feel kind of dumb having put so much thought into designing radula only to realize that I had basically made a Mind-flayer with a pointy tongue.

don't be silly. Radula's look is so much more innovative than a blue guy with a squid head. and his method of enslaving others is way more metal than just "ooo mind magic".

say, I couldn't help but notice that Dale never put Cac into eternal sleep, just sleep. he's bound to wake up some time, right? does this mean you might make a sequel quest sometime in the future? also, do you plan on making more quests in general?

>>81220
the end of the book is 'sleep'. a story ends "and so they went to sleep" unless another book is written, that is the end. they are asleep until the next book.

>>81233
I'm now trying to imagine what it would feel like for your tongue to fall asleep.

Anyway, how could the story have played out differently? What would have happened if Dale used the coke, or drank the coffee, or if we didn't figure out how to cure Todd with the leech?

>>81235
probably like you ate something mildly spicy

Well I always appreciate when a quest actually makes it all the way to the end, because that just doesn't happen enough. That said, it was such a strong, victorious, triumphant feeling at the end, that I was actually thrown for a loop by Radula's epilogue. It felt lonely and hollow, and kind of sad but it was really cool. The Radula perspective stuff could have so easily ruined the whole thing, but it was the best parts.

>>81235

>How could the story have played out differently?

A lot of it would be kind of hard to say, since I didn't have a concrete plan for most of the story. I do know what kind of consequences I had planned for some of the decisions and how they would have changed a few things down the line though. But as a whole I kept it very loose, with really only the first chapter or two mapped out and with an ideal end goal of beating Radula / Cacophony in the dream world.

>What would have happened if Dale used the coke,

Taking the cocaine early on would have kept Dale going long enough to get to town, where he would have likely met Jeff first. Early drafts of the story had him possibly go with Jeff to his mother's house in the suburbs, play video games and meet his sister Sue, who was a possible target for Radula and had a stash of Ritalin to steal (or not). He probably would have ended up falling asleep there because I wanted to establish the consequences of sleeping and introduce Radula pretty early on. Other early plans for the story involved balancing staying awake while feeding a drug addiction and keeping the trust of the rest of the party. The universally negative reaction to the cocaine kept it from ever really being an option though. When they got to the hospital I considered giving Dale another chance to use it, but decided to soft-ball it with the coffee instead. I was surprised to see that rejected as well, but it gave me more chances to draw Radula, so I was happy with it.

>or drank the coffee

Drinking the (day old) coffee would have kept Dale awake through the MRI as well as made him sick. This would have meant more time spent talking to Lynwood and choices whether to try and ditch him or go in for questioning, which could have led to all sorts of problems explaining the cocaine. Most of chapter 4 was, in all honesty, very unplanned, because of all of the directions it could have gone in. Though I wanted the threat of incarceration to be a really serious problem and was interested in making Lynwood a secondary antagonist at first. Originally I had intended for him to be one of the infected, but when I saw how little anyone trusted him, I decided Mary would make a better candidate instead.

>or if we didn't figure out how to cure Todd with the leech?

Curing Todd was a literal do or die moment. I wanted to establish the connection between the leeches and the poison very quickly and if he hadn't been cured Beth would have killed him. That would have basically changed her character completely, making her much less supportive and it would have ended up as a much darker story. It probably would have led towards having to go the police station and may have ended up separating the two player characters for longer.

Todd also was the only other person at the hospital that could see the infected, which forced the infected Dr. Slate to attack. Letting Lynwood see the security footage allowed him to piece together the events while you were unconscious and let him interrupt Mary. Otherwise she would have had the chance to capture the group and take them to the chapel, and would have likely killed someone.

Dale's suicide attempt would have likely been affected by Todd's loss as well, and even if he didn't succeed, just the attempt would have likely had pretty serious consequences.

There's a couple things that honestly evolved on the fly
Originally 5 of the characters were each tied to one of the 5 senses:
Dale would have been the only one that could actually see Rdula but not touch it.
Beth would have been able to actually touch it and thus attack it.
Jeff originally was able to speak to the Chorus and had done so all his life.
Radula could taste others thoughts and memories, and communicated only through its venom, but would have required a constant connection to it victim to control it.
Lynwood, as a cop was literally tracking Dale by his smell, and could smell the presence of Radula.

I abandoned that concept, but kept Dale's black eyes, which ended up being a good indicator for the infected/cured, even if the whole "magic polarization" and black scalera / white iris thing made no sense physically.

>>81220
>do you plan on making more quests in general?

I've got a few Ideas that I'm playing with and am working to piece something together. I'm not sure how long it will take before I feel like its ready to start but I want to have a new quest in the near future (hopefully, say like 1-2 months?). I'm really excited to start though and I had a blast making BoW.

>say, I couldn't help but notice that Dale never put Cac into eternal sleep, just sleep. he's bound to wake up some time, right? does this mean you might make a sequel quest sometime in the future?

A week or two ago I would have laughed and told you absolutely not, and would just have referenced BoW in other quests at some point.

But...There are more songs in the darkness.

Toxoglossa 2014/04/26(Sat)14:48 No. 81272 ID: 0b90a3
File 139854889613.jpg - (11.24KB , 300x452 , the song in the dark.jpg )

Some more terrifying than others.

>>81272
I feel this is a King in Yellow reference now, which makes me think of True Detective, and now Lynwood has a handlebar mustache.

You know about Carcosa?

Now, if that is actually a King in Yellow reference, that means there's a Theatre in Radula's world, or another world all together. Also playbooks. And giving that the Chorus is... a Chorus, and you just mentioned songs, that MIGHT mean the Chorus ain't purely good either, and might have plans for the mortals beyond just keeping them alive.

Wait, scratch that
Ray would have the handlebar mustache since he has the dark eye vision, like Cohle's hallucinations.

>>81271
Will the Chorus eventually reveal themselves again to the world that they created?

>>81273
>I feel this is a King in Yellow reference now, which makes me think of True Detective, and now Lynwood has a handlebar mustache.

>You know about Carcosa?

I try not to make direct references a thing and I actually haven't read a King in Yellow, though it does sound pretty awesome. Some things are more than a little influenced by something (mostly people) and a few things ended up being similar to things that I didn't even know existed until pointed out.

>Now, if that is actually a King in Yellow reference, that means there's a Theatre in Radula's world, or another world all together. Also playbooks. And giving that the Chorus is... a Chorus, and you just mentioned songs, that MIGHT mean the Chorus ain't purely good either, and might have plans for the mortals beyond just keeping them alive.

One of the things that I do like about eldrich mythologies is that its about beings that aren't good or evil, they simply ARE. I tried to keep Radula from being downright evil (even if it ended up being a bit of a hypocrite from time to time), and in its eyes its actions are benevolent. It ended up displaying mercy (or some twisted version of it), and would usually end up attacking out of frustration. In my eyes Radula and the Cacophony are neither good nor evil, only very very alien.

By the same token, the Chorus is also neither good or evil. They are an ancient pantheon; a little less alien, since they created the world that gives mortals context, but still something outlandish. Anyone who's read mythology knows that the old pantheons were as terrifying as they were benevolent.

>>81278
>Will the Chorus eventually reveal themselves again to the world that they created?

Hard to say. They swore to keep from directly interfering with mortal affairs long ago, out of fear of being found by the cacophony again. But with Radula neutralized, they may choose to re-emerge eventually.

Whether or not that would be a good thing remains to be seen.

Why didn't Radula wait until almost everyone in the universe was dead and no one one could really resist the awakening of the Cacophony? Are mortals tasty spices and he really does care about pleasing the Cacophony with tasty mortals to consume for all eternity? Or is he religiously interested in enlightening a lot of people? Or was it "Oh man, if I let the world exist to long the Chorus could get the book and then that specific universe will never be eaten" and I understand that the Cacophony is ambitiously hungry and wants all universes so then I'd know that would be unacceptable. Or when the Cacophony starts eating the universe, causality will require it the mostly happen at a specific point in time before it spreads to the past and then the future?

It sounds like he could just straight up make a deal with the main gang to wait until mostly everyone was dead, like that was an offer that was brought up once. And the jump between the tower and the present was instantaneous for Radula. Shit, he already detained the Proffesor before even the tower, it seems like.

Also, we never did get this answer when I asked it in the main quest, but has the government mostly always known about Radula and the other world and stuff, but it doesn't tell the lower brass? Or was that its first experience with otherworldly shit? I'm really intrigued on how the world's governments would react to all this news, potential for how it would affect warfare, medicine, etc. Even culture.

And HAS the government covered up aliens too? I imagine there's actual aliens aliens, and not alien looking gods and concepts. I mainly just want to know how successful they would be at covering up something when so many civilians know the truth, and space alien cover ups would be the only basis for their experience with a cover up this size if they had to cover up something.

Also what was Dale studying in College?
And what was he going to ask his professor that got him into this mess? Did Homework literally wreck most of Dale's life (and face)?

I realize we know Dale the least, despite being the main protagonist. Or the first. Honestly Beth is probably the most main one. Lot about her.

>>81378
>Why didn't Radula wait until almost everyone in the universe was dead and no one one could really resist the awakening of the Cacophony?...

Most of this falls under the category of "Radula being lazy", which sounds counter-intuitive but from a fractal causality standpoint I feel like it makes some sense.

When Radula enters the real world, that forces it to become part of causality. Every action it takes causes the universe to branch out into another infinite network of possibilities, which means more universes that require invading. And since the Chorus, which in theory is its primary target, is hidden among the folds of causality, its goal would be to keep the infinite possible realities to the smallest infinity possible. So it is forced to follow the natural progression of causality, which is why it finds the whole thing so frustrating. The Book helps it keep on track and keeps it from interfering too much in the order of causality, making for the most efficient possible harvest. By keeping the Book away from Radula, the Chorus expanded the labyrinth of universes to live in.

This is also the reason Radula doesn't just hop into the universe, gather a critical mass of followers and kill itself immediately. Sure it opens up the universe for the Cacophony, but it also creates another identical universe where the Chorus can still hide because Radula is still alive. Although in theory, there was a universe where Radula killed itself on top of the tower as suggested in the intermission, and the world ended because of it.

>When the Cacophony starts eating the universe, causality will require it the mostly happen at a specific point in time before it spreads to the past and then the future?

Each universe has a specific point where it breaks through, in accordance to causality, but once it does the Cacophony doesn't just eat matter, or energy. Once it gains a foothold it starts to break down the laws the Chorus put into place. With those gone every moment is the future and the past, and everything that can happen, happens all at once: basically the Cacophony's natural habitat. Its goal isn't just to eat the universe and move on: it wants to eat every universe forever in a white hot, temporal singularity of hunger.

> Shit, he already detained the Professor before even the tower, it seems like.

Unfortunately time/space hijinks can make a mess of any story, especially a reader-driven one. So for all the talk about everything happening at once and nightmare dimensions, I tried to keep it pretty straightforward. Radula treats time more like a landscape it can roam around in, rather than the straight line we all travel, but it uses major events like the tower, or mental connections with those asleep close to the book to pinpoint its location.

>Also, we never did get this answer when I asked it in the main quest, but has the government mostly always known about Radula and the other world and stuff, but it doesn't tell the lower brass?

I operated under the assumption that Radula didn't reappear in the real world until the professor unearthed the Book somewhere in the mid-east some time before the events of the story. His adventure would probably be interesting to tell at some point, and I regret not getting a chance to develop him, but any knowledge the modern world had of Radula would have been a result of his reappearance.

After the tower the Chorus swore to keep any further involvement with mortals to an absolute minimum, to keep from awakening the Cacophony. Whether or not the US government in the story has had contact or knowledge of aliens is something that would probably be discussed in the next part of the story. I definitely think they would be present in the universe, and probably a great deal of them have encountered Radula in one reality or another (*cough* crossover? *cough*), but I haven't decided if the government would have had any involvement with them.

>I'm really intrigued on how the world's governments would react to all this news, potential for how it would affect warfare, medicine, etc. Even culture.

That'll probably be an interesting thing to see play out. Of course, when you have the combined knowledge of literally everything that ever happened, ever, the problem becomes: how do you find anything useful in it?

>Also what was Dale studying in College?
And what was he going to ask his professor that got him into this mess? Did Homework literally wreck most of Dale's life (and face)?

Professor Schreater was Dale's Cultural Anthropology teacher. I figured Dale for a history major out of convenience, but he would probably be studying something in the humanities (or whatever you'd call that in a world of animal people). I imagined that Dale would have been looking for Schreater to see if he had found anything interesting in his recent trip overseas.

>I realize we know Dale the least, despite being the main protagonist. Or the first. Honestly Beth is probably the most main one. Lot about her.

Dale is kind of the main protagonist in that he is the most of an audience insert. He was honestly kept as much a blank slate as possible, allowing the suggesters to build him through their actions rather than his past. He could have been a drug addled, crowbar-wielding psychopath with the right decisions, and while that would have been fun, I'm glad things worked out for him. I was even open to pretty much any possible romantic entanglement people suggested (minus Jeff), with the understanding that was a horror story about a crazed, unwashed drifter, not a dating-sim.

Beth on the other hand had a very clear role, personality and background from the start and was someone who was questioning a lot about herself. I never expected to have the audience control her as much as they did, but I'm really glad she got so much screen time and I think its really awesome that she became a main protagonist in equal standing. My only frustration with writing her sections ended up being the deaf dialogue. It made for an interesting story in the hospital, but unless they were in immediate danger I started assuming that they found some way to communicate with her that didn't involve wheel-of-fortune style fill in the letters.

>>81414
> Of course, when you have the combined knowledge of literally everything that ever happened, ever, the problem becomes: how do you find anything useful in it?

Easy. Eventually they would hammer out the way to most efficiently and quickly categorize and access specific info, so it stands to reason that that knowledge would be included amongst the whole "everything" thing.

>>81515
But you would need the knowledge of locations in order to find the knowledge of locations.

>>81515
>>81516

Hmmm, would the index of a theoretically infinite source of knowledge also be infinite in size?
So then is there an index of the index?

>>81561
well, just like "machines, section A" and section A is infinite in size, but is about all the machines, ever, forever.

Yeah, there can't be an infinite number of categories.

>>81515
You're making one fundamental unfounded assumption, though.

Yes, if the information on how to meaningfully catalog and search infinities exist, it will by definition be included in the collection of all knowledge.

But you're assuming the information exists in the first place.

Knowledge that does not exist (or cannot exist) won't be something that ever shows up.

...it's kind of like math hell. Sure, the proof for every valid theorem exists in the library somewhere. But the only proofs you can be sure exist to be found are there are those you already know. You could literally search forever for the answers to unanswered questions, with no way to know if the answer you're searching for exists.

Or more mundanely: if only the accumulated information of individual universes is available, and ours is the first universe to establish a foothold in the library, there there exists no prior study of, or meta-knowledge pertaining to, the library or or how to deal with it's unique problems.

>>81568
Why not? Is there an upper limit on ideas or concepts?

>>81570
There is an upper limit to possible/differentiable concepts.

>>81570
overlap. robots are a type of machine. you wouldn't have robot section AND machine section, just machine.

Amongst already answered questions there's probably bits on them that haven't been discovered yet, and references to unanswered questions they could then refer to.

It's probably a giant web of information and I'm sure that we'd be able to parse something useful out of the information available, given time.