Ghostwriter

No advice as to handling the duo.

I did spot an earlier revision of this message, I/O. You referred to some strings you could pull-- so you are in this universe, aren't you? That saves me a bit of explanation, but I suppose not every person has interacted with a ghost-- or even a Harbinger.

Well, don't feel pressured to mention any more than you're comfortable with. I have a distinct feeling that even if I don't push Dime and Belfry into any particular field, they'll find their way through the universe productively somehow. But I am also very open to some physical assistance, if you'd like to take one or the other under your 'wing', so to speak.

dime needs to be taught that ACAB

they should not be allowed to meet each other until belfry calms down and stops clawing at the walls of reality, even if that means keeping them apart for literal years

Yes, this makes sense. The plan was to scatter the both of them through Common Space at near-opposite ends, forcing them to spend a very long time relocating each other. This helps with the second goal of this project, mentioned earlier, if they are presented great difficulty. These two especially seem to be interested in each other's company, though Dime is acting... strange.

I go back to his room, first. He is quiet, and tilts his head to look around the environment intently. As I sit back down, he locks eyes with me.

"What's that flashing thing?" he says, pointing to the Input Aggregator.

"A little device that helps me keep inspired," I reply. It's not entirely untrue. You bunch have helped plenty with writer's block.

He gulps slowly. "...Did you make me?"

A slow shrug. "Does that change anything?"

"I always th-thought it'd be different if I-I ever, uh... met my... maker."

"Different how?" I lean forth. Eyes aren't intrusive. I like to hear people.

Dime lets out a long breath. "Guess it just seemed like it would be a bigger deal for you."

"Well, it's always nice to meet new people. But this is... casual, I hope that's clear. None of this has to be a big deal, and I think it's easier when it isn't."

"I..." Dime lets out a shuddery breath. So much internal thought-- I can see it. Consciousness blooms like a flower, and I love the way its nectar blooms. "I want to get back to what's i-important to me."

My body slumps a bit. "I know, Dime. But for the good of the entire universe, you need to put all that behind you. I promise it's in good hands. If it'd help you, we can even figure out what your future is, in there."

A tear drifts from one of his eyes. "I want to be there. I w-want to be p-part of it."

"You are, Dime."

I take a moment to bring the nickel into Dime's quarters, as well as my writing apparatus. He stares intently into the viewfinder, the same mechanism by which I created him, and the weeping in him grows. He watches himself, Yaffenhash, Belfry, Puffy. I speed things up a bit; give a nudge and a wink to the parameters for a moment. His eyes glaze over with tears. The ship flies through empty space, and dozens of moments of intimacy appear between the characters of our contained story. "They l-look so happy," he whispers.

"Don't see them as the lucky ones," I say, sweetly. "Their lives are important to them. But you have escaped those confines-- and your options are so much greater."

The ship lands on the moon. He watches with intent as the group deploys a form of diplomacy to make it past the armed lizard guards, and navigate to the center of the reptilian base, to begin discussing the end-game of their little world.

"You know," I mention off hand, "you might not want to be a cop out in this universe."

"Wh-why not?"

Another shrug. "Many aren't a fan of them. It's just a thought."

His head pokes up against the viewfinder, like he's trying to push inside of it. It's cute, amidst the emotion. Tough to say all the things running through that mind-- fun to think of, but not entirely reasonable to expect to read. One of the great things of escaping a nickel is the absolute freedom from control, which I am sure horrifies those unlucky few who discover their entrapment.

This is why, for all nickels I design, the characters are never aware that they are not on the top level-- until the very last moment, when they are either plucked, or make the decision to leave. Even characters aware of the existence of nickels must believe they are ascending to the very highest point. I save them this existential fear. One of my most prolific groups of ghosts- a total of fifty-three- was a half-dozen layers deep in fiction after fiction, and it wasn't even by intention.

For that universe, the characters within my topmost layer gained the nickel technology I know use, and began producing their own 'ghosts'. It wasn't until the last ascension that they became the ghosts we can properly use in our universe. Following this story took weeks out of my time, but it was one of the greatest experiences of my life, and it all happened without a single poke or prod.

It's hard to make things like that happen. Truly, it's all luck, if you don't make any edits. That doesn't mean you lack fully-realized consciousnesses-- those are floating all around all the time. But even if we don't design our own ghosts, as we did with Dime and Belfry, we still must use discretion to pick out ones of especial note. This method simply eliminates the time-wasting search, the luck involved.

...I apologize for the side-rant. I think about these things a lot, though. They excite me to think about. Seeing Dime's rather pointless attempts to force himself back into a pocket universe, sobbing to himself, reaffirms the beauty of what I can do here.

The nickel characters struggle and unite. This part of the story is a testimony from all four of them-- I watch Yaffenhash grow especially as a person, as she realizes the crushing oppression that the reptilians have been enacting in secret, and how they betray her admittedly idealistic attempts to help the world. Just as a compromise seems to be brewing, with Dime at its forefront, Yaffenhash disrupts things with the firing of a weapon-- and all hell breaks loose.

Something has snapped in her. She has seen so much will in the tripodals that she won't let her 'people' snuff them out. Belfry is happy to join in, and for a moment, the old friends are one part again. The blue-clothed reptilian adopts her true identity wholesale, and this battle is for the fate of millions.

"What's m-making this happen? Are y-you doing this?" Dime asks quietly.

"No," I assure him. "See?" My hands retract from the machine, letting it play at normal speed. "This is all happening naturally, like much of what came before. It's real in the truest sense."

He sits back a bit. I can see acceptance setting in slowly. He is separating in mind and body from the Dime in the nickel. "How d-does it... uh. How d-does it end?"

I lighten up. He's getting it, now.

The tripodals have fought against the reptilians, and they have prevailed. With the compound largely under control, the battered four of our main characters (I believe Rocks can be taken out wholesale without any structure missing) retrieve the controls of the ships, all approaching the moon. Yaffenhash and Dime team up together to redirect them, instead sweeping over common shipping routes and giving boat-goers a chance to enter. The lowermost doors will open, and crews will be able to board-- perhaps take control, and certainly get to the moon, where supplies can keep them alive.

"Then the Refugians..." Dime starts, almost enthusiastically.

I lean back, and let the nickel pause. "That's a bit of a problem, see. We hadn't quite figured out what would happen when they came, yet."

His eyes narrow. "I th-thought you said it was... n-natural."

"But there's almost no Refugia written. Because it happens so late in your story, we hadn't figured that out yet. So maybe you can help a bit in finishing it." Dime's gaze turns to me in horror. There is so much running through that gaze, so many words unspoken. I offer an appendage to him, which he does take, and I say, "I know. It's strange. But this is why I am happy to have you with me here, now."

He is ready, I think. After this pause, we did, indeed, dedicate ourselves to writing the fate of the nickel's inhabitants. It took about an hour, and by the end, I feel I'd gained some real rapport with Dime. I even got him to laugh a few times. He was made to be like that: somebody who finds humor in terrifying situations. It helps him cope.

When we decide on a location to send him, I will say my farewells, and prepare a teleporter.

As a sidenote: the Yaffenhash in the nickel seems approximately ready to be brought to life. If that's something we'd like to do, I don't mind handling her debrief on my own.

belfry needs introduced to large-scale charitable operations

they should not be allowed to meet each other until belfry calms down and stops clawing at the walls of reality, even if that means keeping them apart for literal years

She is sat when I enter with the input aggregator in hand. When I sit across the table, she does not speak initially. Perhaps she's spent the hour mulling over all of this in peace.

"How are you doing?"

Belfry stiffens before replying with decisiveness. "Ready to leave."

I huff slowly. "That's always an option. I hope we're clear what 'leaving' means, though."

"This is clearly not real. I fell asleep, I started dreaming. You're like some kind of ocean creature and you're talking to me and this room makes me want to die. I can't fucking do anything because it's like the floor is holding me down and you know everything about me and my whole life and I want to leave."

"I'm sorry that you feel that way," I say. "What can I do to change your mind?"

Her gaze grows fiery. "You're not going to 'change my mind', asshole. I've got places to be, and you're in the way."

I have to chuckle softly. "I appreciate your energy, Belfry. It actually reminds me of somebody very much like you-- a young woman who was having some difficulty with being in your situation, as well. Her name is Geneviève Mâché."

"Gene was placed in a very difficult scenario. She was the product of a happenstance which was the product of a happenstance which was the product of a happenstance-- and her existence troubled her even from the beginning, when she learned she was contained within a nickel. Through months of trials and tribulations, her and her cohort ascended from this nickel to find themselves in yet another one, but once that puzzle had been figured out, the ascended to a universe that they found familiar. Their old home. The place they had been born, and the place whose rules they followed.

Her story had been completed. Geneviève Mâché was the hero at the forefront, aided by the people behind her and several mysterious 'inputs', from a device like this one I'm holding. She finally rested and felt whole, content with the person she had become and the trials she had gone through.

But something was wrong. Everything was wrong. As she traveled to a new home for the first time, she found a familiar sight-- fifty-two colored circles, one for each of her cohort, resting atop a sickly blue metal platform. This was how she had ascended from each level in the past, and now her reality began to break down around her. Barely holding composure, she retrieved her people for another ascension, and woke up in a universe where all they had known in their past was false.

They were created, fictional, ghosts. The world they woke up on was absent of the magic and time-travel and heroes of their age, and was instead a society in a cold war with its alien counterpart-- and they had been created to try and act as heroes for this world, too. Not by fighting, but with diplomacy.

You can expect-- no, ha, you can relate!-- to Gene's immediate rejection of this goal, and her rejection of this reality. She wouldn't move her body to follow these commands, and as I watched her, I understood. I understood fully. To force her to live in yet another false universe was pure cruelty; so, as the figure at the top of this metaphorical mountain, I took her and her cohort out, and placed each one in a room much like this one.

Geneviève Mâché did not think she was dreaming, but she did think that this, too, was fake. She wasted no time in getting out of this room and exploring what she believed to be a fictional place. While her cohort went on to do rather interesting things with themselves, separate or united, Gene was a very special case. Her unending desire to discover the next 'gate' consumed her life for growths, dozens of growths. And, in a way, all this work paid off. At the end of an endless trail, she discovered definitive proof that we existed independently of any above force-- a discovery which earned her fame and renown that I could never accomplish, myself. It was her experience with layered universes that made her able to make this discovery and so many more.

She is an incredible person, Belfry. She has accomplished so much. It was her hate for her environment, her need to escape, that inspired her unending brilliance. Even today, she continues persevering, improving. Her outlook has changed a lot, as you can probably imagine. But I believe she is happy. Even through her unending vitriol towards me, I can sense the faintest bit of 'thanks' within her acid words.

I can sense she appreciates having been created, even if it were an accident on my part. There is no love for me, Civvie, arrogant and selfish god that I am-- but there is a love for existence, and I hope you can achieve that love."

Belfry does not move. I suspect she is looking for a sharp object to impale me with. "Of course, Belfry, this is all difficult. This is a new environment, an entirely new story you must write for yourself. And I know that you can adapt to environments, I know you're the sort that will work to make things the way they should be, and I know you'll persevere through this sudden change. The reason why is--"

I shift my weight forward. My eyes lower. I am taller than this ghost, and I am more corporeal. "I made you that way."

I have stepped outside for a moment. There will be another brief moment of interview with each of them before I send them off to wherever they may go. For now, I need some input on where that should be. Different locations for each one, as I mentioned.

Thank you for all your help. Next transmission ought be my last.