I’ve been wanting to collect some things here for a while.
Welcome to Loose Thread Theater, where all the loose threads that YOU want answered can hang out and get their spot in the sunlight.
To start it off, here are the loose threads I’m always circling back to looking for answers for.
Way back in Fragment 2, King Rabbit said that he was promised a reward for helping us. Who promised him a reward? The Book of Briars? Brandon? The Cagliostro? Sullivan? The horrible evil on the horizon?
The Devoted decided to help us on Fragment 4 because someone outside their organization convinced them to open up their findings to other factions. Who was this person? The same person who promised King Rabbit a reward perhaps? Someone else?
Related to #2 above when fragment 4 ended Sacha left the devoted saying she had ‘been accepted’. Where did she go?
Why did Brandon’s mom create TheForestOfDarkeningGlass website? Did she get the piece of mind she wanted out of it?
What’s the dark storm on the horizon Brandon warned us about?
On a possibly related topic… What happened to the 84 Mountaineers that seems to have wiped them out and/or driven them insane?
Just what does Marty know about magiq? We assumed nothing, but AC seems to indicate he’s been looking for it for a while.
A new one just came in today. Who or what is this organization that seemingly pulls Cagliostro’s strings? And are they really about to usher in a dark age with this new Cagliostro?
Maybe I’m having a Robert moment (yes, I said it ) but I figured whatever got the 1984 mountaineers, is the “dark storm”. I imagine its something we’ll have to fight, like the old mountaineers did. All I can seem to imagine is it being some big black ghostly fog, which is so totally creative, right? Either way, maybe I assumed wrong but that what I thought they were talking about!
I’m totally dying to know what organization took over the Devoted, corrupted them. Though I feel like we’ll probably encounter them in the future… at least, if Sacha gets her way… Also, I wonder what happened to the Devoted who were left behind?
I’m also curious about what happened to the people the Devoted sent after Marty. Were they also just used and abused by the Devoted, and why were they interested in the Lachmann case?
Cagliostro mentioned that there were “other Cagliostros” who’d known magic - does that mean there are multiple Cagliostros running the organization at any given time, or is he speaking of the people he succeeded? How many Cagliostros have come before him?
It seems to me that there are two people who would be able to answer most, if not all of those questions, @Robert. (yes, hello, it’s me again)
The first is Sascha, and, well, we all know how well that conversation would go (if we were even able to find her to ask.)
The second is Martin
. He’s been investigating all of this much longer than any of us. He clearly knows plenty about what we’re likely to facing in the future, the invisible hand(s) behind all the treachery.
I’m pretty sure these are the people trying to keep magic hidden from the world, keep “average” everyday people from knowing about it, using it, so that they can control it / us.
Sorry I borrowed your tinfoil hat on that last bit. but it’s been my experience that not only do most conspiracy theories turn out to have more than a nugget of truth in them, but that the rabbit hole always seems to lead back to one place. Power. Amassing and controlling power, specifically, power over people. People like Cagliostro. And us. And everyone else on the planet.
Of course Ascender would know things as well, but our chances of getting to ask Ascender anything are slim. So that leads us back to Martin. He’s really our only chance at this point of learning what threat we undoubtedly will be facing in the future. (Yes I said we. I’m still around. I just don’t feel like I’d be much help on this leg of the journey, being out of commission for so long.)
I found more things to ponder! Again, these aren’t questions I necessarily expect answers to…well ever. They’re just fun little things I remember that I thought ‘huh, what was that about?’ and maybe they come up, maybe they don’t.
How the heck did Lauren get 10 ‘car sized pieces of freight’ into the entryway of a New York City loft? Yeah, I know…magiq. But what kind of weird looks did she get from the movers who showed up to find a tardis-like front hallway?
Way back in fragment 3ish days Deidre visited a bookstore called Cumberland Books. There she saw a few neat books including a book from the 1450’s which was written by someone we tangentially stalked in phase 4. I forget the exact name of the book, but that’s not the question. The question is, why did the devoted have the phone number for Cumberland Books hand written on the papers they unearthed from Brandon?
Reader gave us the number, but didn’t know if Brandon or the Devoted wrote it there. What was the connection? Who wrote it? Why?
And in case anyone is curious, I just checked and the phone number still works and still gets the cranky guy answering machine for Cumberland Books. 347-815-0330
About Cumberland Books, a thought (or three). We now know that Sullivan’s magic was cast on Diedre, to keep her protected. It must be what lead her to Cumberland to find that book. It must also be what’s keeping us from finding the bookstore and being able to reach cranky man on the phone, same way Diedre couldn’t read our messages on her blog. I’m pretty sure no matter how many messages we leave at Cumberland, cranky man just won’t receive them. But why? Why disguise an entire business over just one book, a book that according to Diedre is no longer even there? It just makes no sense. You’re right, what is up with that book? It never really came up again after she posted that picture of it. Loose thread indeed.
For newer recruits who have no idea what we’re talking about, here’s a link to Diedre’s original post http://www.deedsdone.co.uk/2016/09/08/books-books-books/
I just want to re-iterate something I said before about that book. The pages she posted don’t match the outside of the book. They look brand new, while the book is definitely showing it’s age (kind of amazing that it’s held up at all considering its age, and that the current owner found it in a barn). Also the pages look to be block printed, like with a hand carved stamp and look oddly cut-and-pasted. We may also be looking at a palimpsest, there are faded words on the white parts of the pages. As for the red markings and the scrap the fold, not a clue. Anyone here fluent in 15th century Latin?
I think this belongs here. Our new forum logo got me thinking again about the travellers discs. I had started sorting out the constellations and moon phases, but never quite got around to finishing, I only ever found three of the constellations. Anyhoo, the new logo is different, the constellations are the same, but the moon phases are quite different, and there are letters around the border now. I don’t know if this is a loose thread or a new mystery.
Edit: Okay duh, the letters around the border are the guilds. I am such a dunce.
I do find it charming that Ebengard and Weatherwatch are in the East and West positions. Crazy map lady is easily amused.
Did anyone else notice how in the Guide’s quiz the first question states “While attempting philosomancy, you accidentally transform yourself into a book during a botched verbafuge spell. Now someone must read you from beginning to end in order to reverse the enchantment.”
There are two choices. They are cited as the choice of the Moons and the choice of the Sun.
“Would you prefer to be enjoyed by a lone bookworm in the cozy window seat of a musty library?
(The Choice of The Moons)
Please click here to turn to page 34.”
or
“Or would you rather be read aloud to a captivated audience that responds to you with admiration and rapturous applause?
(The Choice of The Sun)
Please click here to turn to page 9.”
This logo seems to suggest that Balimorans and Thornmouths are “Moons”, Gossmeres and Flinterforges are “Sun”, and Weatherwatchers and Ebenguardians are Balanced.
Just something I noticed that may be relavent in the future.
Going by my analysis of the guide test… sadly that really doesn’t work. This is because, for example, Weatherwatch is exclusively the choice of the sun, Thornmouth exclusively the moon. Ebenguard, Balimora, and Gossmere are actually the most borderline (half and half), with Flinterforge leaning towards sun.
So, I guess it works for Thornmouths and Flinterforges, but everyone else? Nope
Yep! My point was that the guide’s relation between sun/moon and guilds doesn’t connect with the logo’s relation between sun/moon and the guilds.
Although… I believe the guide takes those questions as an introvert/extrovert thing… the logo might take a more symbolic turn, though I can’t think of an example to explain it at the moment. I’m also terrible at symbolism in general, though.
On a completely unrelated note… it’s kind of odd that it says choice of the moons, plural. Weird.
Is anyone else worried about @Eaves ? I know its different for us Gossmere, we feel his pain… He’s been distant since Ascender left…
But he should know he has a family here, and that he is missed.
I’m necro’ing this thread. I have more questions and if I don’t write them down they keep rattling around in my head and I have enough things in there.
First off, can I say how awesome it is that we have basically all the answers now to my original set of questions?
My new questions.
Teddy said that anyone who killed someone was no longer able to use magiq. That’s why the storm wiped peoples minds or ‘unhooked’ them instead of just killing them. But in the end the Silver did order the Storm to kill someone…Nate. Will they face any consequences for that?
Who is Fletcher Dawson? They’re credited with writing at least 2 of the 5 books that were key to Deidre’s finding of the Little Red House. At least one of these books had a major impact on Brandon Lachmann as well. What is their connection to all this?
Who is the Collector? If it was just some random person they wouldn’t have had to go so far to disguise themselves as a bird-man, would they? Does that mean Deidre or us would recognize them if she had seen him in his every day form? Or are they just showing off their power?
Seriously, what is the deal with the phone number to Cumberland Books? I’m not letting this one go.
How big - membership wise- are the Woolies and the Silver? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? You have to figure they have enough members to form a self sustaining population to keep alive through the generations (I make them sound like panda cubs in a zoo). There have to be more than a few. I guess unless of course they all have stupid long life spans like Cags?
What’s the Silvers plan B? I doubt they’re giving up on all this. Will they make another Storm? Can they? Will they resort to more aggressive magiq? Will they just use their wealth and fortunes to start dropping Cease and Desist letters on other magiq practioners claiming they have a copywrite on it? Is this the rise of the magicmystic attorneys at last?
Who, or what, was ‘the thing’ at the center of the Storm?
You got any questions? Toss them in here and we can all be confounded together.
Teddy found a loophole to that rule, because death by torture isn’t apparently the same as straight up murder. The silver could have just sent the storm after the mounties, without saying exactly what it needed to do. But they knew the pain it would cause.
And like Mr.Wideawake said, the Silver is… splintered, with many factions and many far reaching branches. I doubt even they know how many members follow the path of Silver.
) but I figured whatever got the 1984 mountaineers, is the “dark storm”. I imagine its something we’ll have to fight, like the old mountaineers did. All I can seem to imagine is it being some big black ghostly fog, which is so totally creative, right? Either way, maybe I assumed wrong but that what I thought they were talking about!