In-game date: Sunday, September 10, 1995
Agents:
- Agent FRANK — Tiff
- Agent LOOPIN — Rob
- Agent WHEELZ — Shayla
- Agent PANTHER — Pete
- Handler: Agent Marcus
The session resumed around noon on Sunday with the agents still at the McAllistar.
They reviewed the increasingly large number of open investigative threads and decided to divide their attention more deliberately.
FRANK would return to Abigail Wright’s apartment and continue examining the enormous layered shrine.
WHEELZ would try approaching Michelle Vanfitz again, this time without presenting herself as law enforcement.
PANTHER would interview the last largely unexplored resident:
Louis Post.
LOOPIN, now uniquely aware in-character of the recurring golden symbols, continued trying to make sense of the building, its numbering, and the growing symbol network.
LOOPIN remained particularly bothered by the receipt for:
The McAllistar’s known rooms begin with 21 on the ground floor, 22 above them, and apparently 23 on the otherwise empty third floor.
That made 10B feel like it might belong to:
- another building,
- another numbering scheme,
- or some unknown section of the McAllistar.
LOOPIN made a quick survey of the neighboring buildings.
Nothing matched.
Nearby buildings used ordinary numbering systems and were visibly separate structures.
For the moment, there was no mundane adjacent 10B to discover.
LOOPIN began considering other approaches:
- City Hall building plans,
- library records,
- police records,
- and an eventual after-hours break-in at ArtLife to inspect its files.
The 10B problem remained unresolved.
FRANK returned to 21B looking specifically for older artwork and anything that might help establish when the strange imagery and symbols began appearing in Abigail’s work.
The search went badly.
Even after expending additional effort, FRANK failed to find what she was specifically looking for.
She did, however, uncover something else buried in the layers:
The material consisted of damaged and partially burned pages from an old gallery publication.
The exhibition had been mounted by the:
Black Star Gallery
and its curator was:
Brandon Thomas.
The featured artist was:
Candida-Hilarion
The gallery material describes Candida-Hilarion’s work in almost mystical terms.
Her husband was identified as:
described as both a:
- rocket scientist
- and Thelemic priest
After Parsons’s death and the destruction of their home in an explosion, Candida apparently destroyed her previous artistic work and underwent a prolonged spiritual transformation.
She eventually began producing strange new art based on what she claimed were journeys beyond ordinary reality.
Her statements included the idea that there is:
no separation between art and life, nor art and death.
She described finding rather than creating images during journeys:
- through a shroud,
- across a lake,
- among stars,
- and into other worlds.
The accompanying work repeatedly invoked:
- angels,
- demons,
- death,
- brilliant light,
- comets,
- stars,
- and figures apparently occupying contradictory states at once.
The gallery text describes the work using a spectacular collection of art-world terminology, including transcendental, disembodied, Thelemic, surrealistic and automatistic.
More important than the art criticism were the annotations.
Among the material were references to:
The Hanged Man
and:
The Chariot.
One strange note effectively complained that the Hanged Man had failed with Vanfitz and the girl and the Chariot should be sent instead.
The players immediately recognized that this sounded disturbingly like commentary on events happening around their own investigation.
The Tarot imagery was no longer merely something attached to the game mechanics.
It was appearing inside the evidence.
WHEELZ approached Michelle Vanfitz without the RCMP presentation that had made their first meeting so unsuccessful.
Michelle remained prickly and initially refused to let WHEELZ into the apartment.
Then WHEELZ noticed her computer.
It was an unusually good machine for 1995.
Talking computers succeeded where talking about Abigail had failed.
Michelle revealed that she writes for:
She complained that her editor repeatedly assigns her the “girl games”—family games, dress-up games and similar material—despite her wanting to cover the whole medium.
She also writes:
- fiction,
- feminist zines,
- and other personal material.
Her argument that videogames are themselves art was apparently part of what persuaded Cynthia LeChance to accept her into the ArtLife program.
WHEELZ found an excuse to hand Michelle a pen and asked her to write down:
Cynthia LeChance
and Cynthia’s phone number.
This gave the agents a clean sample of Michelle’s handwriting.
It did not match either of the mysterious handwriting styles already appearing throughout the evidence.
Michelle therefore does not appear to be the obvious author of either the recurring blue or red writing.
Michelle then offered to show WHEELZ the videogame she was currently reviewing.
It was called:
WHEELZ had never heard of it.
Michelle described it as an unusual game centered around full-motion video and puzzles.
Its icon showed:
a yellow hooded figure against a red background.
The first attempt to launch it crashed Michelle’s computer completely.
After rebooting, she tried again.
This time it worked.
The game apparently takes place in:
—twenty years in the future.
Inside the videogame is a fictional service called:
—a platform where users apparently upload videos.
Michelle opened one of them.
The page indicated a video published in:
Neither year is remotely possible in September 1995.
The video itself was largely dark and difficult to hear.
WHEELZ could, however, read captions.
They described a scene occurring in:
The characters present included:
- a dog,
- Thomas,
- Michelle,
- and Mark Roark.
During the scene they discuss Abigail.
The captions reveal several extraordinary statements:
- “Abigail is gone. She moved upstairs today.”
- her father had recently come around;
- someone claims Abigail ran away with a salesman;
- Mark expresses that he misses her.
Then someone begins climbing the stairs.
The occupants stop and listen.
Mark looks down the staircase.
The scene ends with:
The characters in the scene were marked with symbols.
The agents’ symbols were also present.
At the table, the players realized that the video appeared to be depicting a version of events connected directly to their own arrival at the McAllistar.
WHEELZ thought she had seen her own name and several familiar names in the video.
She asked Michelle to rewind.
On the second viewing:
The altered version did not contain the information WHEELZ distinctly remembered seeing.
The accumulating impossibilities finally forced a Sanity check.
WHEELZ kept herself together, but the experience nevertheless cost her a small amount of Sanity.
The game was apparently showing her information from the future about events happening in 1995—and changing when observed again.
WHEELZ continued talking with Michelle and discovered the same temporal disorientation already seen in Roger Carun.
Michelle said she had been playing A Song Before Travel since approximately:
February.
Then the conversation turned to the current date.
Michelle thought it was:
Her calendar was still showing June.
WHEELZ informed her that it was September.
Michelle looked outside, acknowledged that the weather seemed wrong for June, and manually flipped the calendar through:
- July,
- August,
- September.
She seemed confused rather than deceptive.
Like Roger, she apparently has lost months without realizing it.
WHEELZ asked about the strange numbering of the McAllistar.
Michelle acknowledged that the building was oddly numbered.
There was the known third floor.
But according to Michelle:
there was also a fourth floor.
And a fifth.
And a sixth.
And a seventh.
And more.
They simply:
Michelle had never reached the top.
This directly contradicts the physical building the agents can see from outside.
It also matches:
- LOOPIN’s fleeting experience of additional floors above the roof,
- the repeated instruction UPSTAIRS,
- and the impossible A Song Before Travel scene explicitly set in a fourth-floor parlour.
Michelle had a current copy of CyberGamer Canada in her apartment.
WHEELZ began reading it.
Almost immediately, it became another massive piece of evidence.
The magazine contained:
- familiar names,
- familiar symbols,
- strange annotations,
- apparent Tarot correspondences,
- references to people in the McAllistar,
- material concerning A Song Before Travel,
- and cryptic instructions concerning glyphs, travel and other concepts already appearing elsewhere in the investigation.
Names visible within the magazine included familiar McAllistar residents such as:
- Carun,
- Manuel,
- Vanfitz,
- Post,
along with names such as:
- Roark,
- LeChance,
- and several people not yet identified.
The amount of relevant information was overwhelming.
WHEELZ voluntarily asked for a Sanity check simply from trying to process it.
She succeeded.
But one conclusion was unavoidable:
Whatever puzzle the agents are trying to solve, Michelle Vanfitz has apparently been working on it too.
WHEELZ attempted to keep the magazine.
Michelle noticed.
She took it away.
WHEELZ even offered to buy the copy, but Michelle refused; she keeps copies of her published work.
The magazine went back onto her bookshelf.
WHEELZ now considers obtaining a full copy of that specific issue an extremely high priority.
A normal newsstand copy may provide useful information.
But Michelle’s particular copy also contains material which may not exist in ordinary copies.
The team began considering methods ranging from distraction to burglary.
Meanwhile, PANTHER visited:
Louis is a young, personable comic-book illustrator.
His fingers were stained with ink and he was immediately enthusiastic when PANTHER claimed to be another prospective ArtLife artist.
Louis described previous professional work involving mainstream superhero comics, including work connected to:
- The Flash
- and Wolverine.
But when PANTHER asked to see current work, Louis claimed he had already mailed everything to publishers.
There was almost no visible artwork in his workspace.
PANTHER nevertheless noticed something Louis did not intend to show him:
a stack of papers and a mirror hidden beneath the bed.
He was unable to examine them closely without exposing what he was doing.
Louis also provided an explanation for the building’s bizarre layout.
As he understands it, the McAllistar was originally built as a large private home or manor and was only later converted into apartments.
That would explain some of the:
- awkward room divisions,
- misplaced bathtubs,
- fireplaces,
- and strange floor plans.
Louis had heard that the original architect was considered some kind of genius.
He did not know much more.
While discussing the fireplaces, Louis mentioned another person connected to the McAllistar:
the:
According to Louis, Mr. Castaigne acts as a combination handyman, maintenance worker and building employee.
He:
- services things around the building,
- apparently cleans the fireplaces,
- can usually be found around the basement boiler or furnace rooms,
- and, most importantly:
Louis could not clearly remember the last time he saw him.
This provides a potential new explanation for one of the investigation’s largest contradictions.
The tenants insist they paid rent.
ArtLife insists it received nothing.
Perhaps the agents need to determine:
Who exactly have the tenants been paying?
PANTHER offered to show Louis his own sculpture.
Louis followed him outside to the truck.
The sculpture was, of course:
Like Cynthia before him, Louis found it genuinely compelling.
He particularly admired the realism of the claw marks and was impressed to learn that the piece had been created collaboratively with PANTHER’s cat.
But something happened when Louis crossed the threshold of the McAllistar.
He became:
- briefly disoriented,
- intensely thirsty,
- and increasingly eager to get back inside.
He cut the conversation short and hurried toward the building, saying he needed a drink.
This was the first time the agents deliberately took one of the residents outside and watched the building’s influence manifest at the boundary.
LOOPIN eventually returned to the basement to continue exploring the building.
There he discovered a poster advertising:
The title itself initially received surprisingly little attention because LOOPIN became fixated on something else.
Beneath the poster was another symbol.
LOOPIN compared it with the symbol system he had been assembling and realized that it matched a symbol hidden in the impossible A Song Before Travel YouTube clip.
The correspondence consumed his attention so completely that the actual title of the poster nearly passed unnoticed.
PANTHER’s player caught the title.
He asked an important out-of-character question:
Does The King in Yellow exist as a piece of media in this world?
The answer is:
The players know Robert W. Chambers’s The King in Yellow exists in reality.
But their characters inhabit a universe in which looking for the familiar Chambers book called The King in Yellow will not produce it.
Whatever Le Roi et Jaune is, its relationship to the missing work may eventually explain why.
This is currently player-level information rather than something the agents fully understand.
At approximately this point, the investigation suffered another threat to human sanity:
there are far too many people named Thomas.
The growing list includes various combinations of Thomas as first name, surname or near-match, some meaningful and some purely coincidental.
LOOPIN’s player and the Handler attempted to untangle them.
The Handler ultimately admitted that at least part of this is simply an unfortunate naming collision rather than an occult truth.
Faced with his own inability to keep the Thomases straight, the Handler performed a Sanity check.
He passed.
The agents increasingly suspect that the otherwise empty 22A belonged to:
—the man identified in the impossible A Song Before Travel scene.
WHEELZ searched the room and discovered a crumpled map.
On it were the words:
For the first time, the agents had an explicit name for whatever impossible architecture seems to exist above the McAllistar.
The map also indicated the presence of a mysterious figure described as a:
This gave the team another concrete historical lead.
FRANK and WHEELZ left the McAllistar for the library.
WHEELZ’s strong Computer and Bureaucracy abilities made her particularly suited to systematic records research.
Their first target was a name from the Candida-Hilarion gallery material:
The Black Star Gallery material had described Parsons as a:
- rocket scientist,
- Thelemic priest,
- and husband of Candida-Hilarion.
The historical records painted a stranger and rather less flattering picture.
Parsons was associated with:
and:
He was described as:
- a scoundrel,
- a scam artist,
- an MLM-style door-to-door salesman,
- and a man with no official academic credentials.
Whatever the truth behind the gallery’s description of him as a “rocket scientist,” the ordinary record did not cleanly support it.
Then FRANK and WHEELZ found a photograph.
Jack Parsons was carrying:
and wearing:
The description matched the mysterious figure marked on the Night Floors map.
A man from the historical record now appeared to correspond directly to a figure inside the McAllistar’s impossible architecture.
While the others continued trying to determine what the McAllistar actually is, PANTHER reached a much simpler conclusion.
The building is clearly dangerous.
Its residents are compromised.
Its architecture cannot be trusted.
Its history is becoming increasingly alarming.
PANTHER therefore began developing a containment plan.
Step one:
No dynamite has yet been obtained.
But PANTHER has begun thinking seriously about demolishing the entire building.
The phrase appeared on the map found in the suspected Mark Roark room.
It appears to describe the impossible floors extending above the mundane McAllistar.
According to Michelle, floors four, five, six, seven and beyond simply continue upward.
She has never found the top.
This corroborates LOOPIN’s roof experience.
In 1995, Michelle is playing a videogame set in 2015 containing a simulated YouTube video dated 2007.
The video includes people and events connected directly to the current investigation.
The scene explicitly ends:
ENTER FEDERAL AGENTS.
It also describes a fourth-floor room which does not exist in the visible building.
Names and identifying details WHEELZ saw on the first viewing vanished when the clip was replayed.
She believed it was June.
It is September.
Roger and Michelle now independently demonstrate major failures in their perception of time.
Michelle’s copy of CyberGamer Canada contains an enormous amount of material overlapping with the agents’ investigation.
WHEELZ concludes that Michelle has apparently been trying to understand the same underlying system.
WHEELZ failed to steal it.
Recovering or reproducing its contents is now a significant objective.
9. Louis has hidden papers and a mirror
PANTHER saw them beneath his bed but has not yet inspected them.
Mr. Castaigne reportedly works in the basement and collects rent.
This may be directly relevant to the contradiction between the tenants’ belief that they paid and ArtLife’s claim that no payments arrived.
Crossing outside made him disoriented and intensely thirsty.
He quickly returned inside.
The building’s inhabitants may now be physically or psychologically bound to it.
The Black Star Gallery, Brandon Thomas, Candida-Hilarion and Jack Parsons create an entirely new historical branch of the investigation.
The document also directly invokes Tarot identities such as the Hanged Man and Chariot.
LOOPIN found a poster in the basement.
A symbol attached to it matches one hidden in A Song Before Travel.
This is presently a player-level realization.
Something has apparently displaced or replaced the familiar cultural history the players know.
The records show him with:
- white shoes,
- and a suitcase.
The same visual description appears on the map found in the McAllistar.
CyberGamer writer.
Has lost several months of time.
Claims the McAllistar contains indefinitely ascending floors.
Possesses an extraordinarily important annotated issue of CyberGamer Canada.
Has been playing the impossible A Song Before Travel since roughly February.
Comic-book illustrator.
Has little visible current work despite claiming a professional career.
Keeps papers and a mirror hidden beneath his bed.
Knows of the Night Manager.
Became disoriented and desperately thirsty immediately after leaving the McAllistar.
The previously unknown Night Manager.
Apparently works in or near the basement furnace rooms.
Maintains parts of the building.
Collects rent from the tenants.
Current whereabouts unknown.
Appears in the impossible A Song Before Travel scene.
Probably associated with the otherwise empty 22A.
A map found there explicitly refers to the Night Floors.
Artist exhibited by the Black Star Gallery.
Widow of Jack Parsons.
Claims her later art came from journeys through other realms.
Associated with increasingly explicit occult, artistic and Tarot imagery.
Curator of the Black Star Gallery and author of the Candida-Hilarion exhibition material.
Candida-Hilarion’s husband.
Described in the gallery material as a rocket scientist and Thelemic priest.
Historical research instead presents him as a dubious operator without conventional academic credentials.
Associated with Ian F. Decraig and Henry M. Lundine.
Photographed with the suitcase and white shoes appearing on the Night Floors map.
Historical associate of Jack Parsons.
Not yet investigated in depth.
Historical associate of Jack Parsons.
Not yet investigated in depth.
The investigation now has several particularly strong threads:
- Obtain Michelle Vanfitz’s CyberGamer issue.
- Compare it against an ordinary newsstand copy.
- Examine the papers and mirror beneath Louis Post’s bed.
- Find Mr. Castaigne, the Night Manager.
- Determine whether Mr. Castaigne has been receiving the missing rent payments.
- Investigate the basement office, boiler and furnace areas associated with him.
- Investigate Mark Roark and 22A.
- Study the Night Floors map.
- Identify the man with the suitcase and white shoes.
- Continue researching Jack Parsons.
- Research Ian F. Decraig.
- Research Henry M. Lundine.
- Research Candida-Hilarion.
- Research the Black Star Gallery and Brandon Thomas.
- Investigate Le Roi et Jaune.
- Determine why its symbol also appears inside A Song Before Travel.
- Investigate the future names and dates in A Song Before Travel.
- Determine who Victor Correll is.
- Continue investigating Apartment 10B.
- Search City Hall for original McAllistar plans.
- Investigate the building’s history as a private house or manor.
- Follow up with Thomas Wright, Abigail’s father.
- Continue the investigation of ArtLife, including LOOPIN’s proposed after-hours search of its records.
- Determine whether the McAllistar residents are capable of leaving the building for any meaningful length of time.
- Work out what the symbol system actually represents.
- Determine what the Tarot correspondences mean in-character.
- Prevent PANTHER from acquiring irresponsible amounts of dynamite.
Or assist him.
Depending on how the investigation goes.
The agents began Sunday knowing that the McAllistar was impossible.
They now have the beginnings of a vocabulary for how it is impossible.
There are:
Michelle says they rise indefinitely above the building.
A videogame from an impossible future contains a scene on the fourth floor and apparently knows the agents are coming.
A vanished resident left behind a map of those floors.
A historical figure appears on that map decades later, identifiable by his suitcase and white shoes.
An old gallery document describes art retrieved from journeys beyond reality.
A poster for Le Roi et Jaune shares a symbol with the impossible future video.
And the residents of the building increasingly appear unable to perceive either the passage of time or the possibility of simply leaving.
The agents are still investigating the McAllistar as a building.
PANTHER is beginning to investigate it as a demolition target.