Soon after the meeting with GM, a chat log was created. Like the Revenants, we had access to the BloodNet. We were the only people on the island that could use the BloodNet, so it was pretty easy to find the other Dark Apostles on the “active users” list. Melkior created a group entitled [Castle Bosporus General Chat]. He set the rules on the group chat so that anyone could set the name they wanted to use. He then set two guidelines for the use of the group chat.
1. Set your name as [Username (Number)]. Example: Melkior477 (5).
2. This forum post will be deleted in 48 hours so that the Revenants will not be able to gain access.
Only a few Dark Apostles - myself included - made use of the group chat at first. As the conversation became more pertinent to our next moves, more and more people began to join. By the end of the night, everyone had joined the group chat.
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Melkior477 (5) has joined!
EnzoTheBaker (13) has joined!
Dendrite4 (12) has joined!
Salieri2408 (9) has joined!
TyrantMoon (8) has joined!
Poldra (11) has joined!
Svenheim (1) has joined!
NullPoEx (6) has joined!
Melkior477 (5): Hello, everyone. I have created this group chat so that we could speak further on our plans for the future. I cannot speak to our specific goals for the future, but I’m pretty confident in saying that we all agree that our goal should be to prevent the Revenants from killing us. Can we all agree on that premise?
Poldra (11): Not dying sounds good.
Dendrite4 (12): Yes
EnzoTheBaker (13): I agree, I guess.
TyrantMoon (8): Broadly speaking. But we’ll probably disagree on the specifics.
Salieri2408 (9): Are you sure the Revenants will try to kill us?
Melkior477 (5): It’s in their best interests to do so.
Poldra (11): Oh yeah, Tantalus and Ashcroft will be coming for us as soon as they can.
Salieri2408 (9): Who?
Dendrite4 (12): Two guys who were in charge in Osiris
EnzoTheBaker (13): Ashcroft the YouTuber.
TyrantMoon (8): Oh, that guy? I didn’t watch him. He annoys me.
Poldra (11): Yeah, well, he’s good at the game and the players at Osiris are under his thumb.
EnzoTheBaker (13): I got the sense that Tantalus was in charge at Osiris.
Melkior477 (5): That’s beside the point.
Melkior477 (5): Are we in agreement that our goal is self preservation?
Salieri2408 (9): That is “a” goal. Maybe not the only goal.
Melkior477 (5): Sven?
Svenheim (1): Yes
Melkior477 (5): Are you in agreement? Also, where’s 2 through 4?
Svenheim (1): Oh yeah, of course. We’re on board with fighting the Revenants. Kojiro just punched a wall, and he’s complaining about it. The other three will be on in a few minutes.
Melkior (5): Okay. We have a consensus.
Salieri2408 (9): May it be noted that I didn’t agree to “fighting the Revenants.”
Fatima72 (10) has joined!
Melkior477 (5): Noted.
Melkior477 (5): We should get back to introductions. I believe we were interrupted at Seven last time.
Poldra (11): Are you sure? Will GM be summoned again if we do that?
Melkior477 (5): Ha ha, very funny. That was a joke, I assume.
Poldra (11): Shut up
Svenheim (1): Are introductions necessary? We can see eachothers usernames in the “active users” list.
Poldra (11): Hey, you got to introduce yourself. I want to do the same.
Svenheim (1): Whatever you say, Eleven.
Melkior477 (5): Okay, let’s move on to Eight. Kamil, can you introduce yourself.
Salieri2408 (9): You remembered my name. I appreciate it. You can see my username and my number, but I would very much not like to be called Eight or Salieri. No matter what GM says, I am Kamil. I am a person.
Kojiro19 (4) has joined!
ArakiForgot (3) has joined!
Talwar13 (2) has joined!
Svenheim (1): Calm down, dude
Salieri2408 (9): I am calm. I just don’t think we should treat our current situation with uninterested flippancy.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Kojiro19 (4): MY HAND
TyrantMoon (8): What
Kojiro19 (4): I PUNCHED A PILLAR AND IT BROKE MY ******* HAND
Kojiro19 (4): ******* PROFANITY FILTER
EnzoTheBaker (13): Stop it with the caps.
Melkior477 (5): New rule: no caps.
Kojiro19 (4): Fine. Remove the profanity filter.
Melkior477 (5): No.
Kojiro19 (4): ******* tyrant.
Poldra (11): Ha ha, **** you
Melkior477 (5): Focus.
Kojiro19 (4): No, I wanted to talk about my hand.
Talwar13 (2): let hm do it. it ws rly funy.
Melkior477 (5): Fine, I’ll allow you one minute to talk about how you broke your hand.
Kojiro19 (4): So, I punched a pillar. The pillar cracked in three places, and the ceiling started to shake. Problem: I broke some of the bones in my hand. There was blood everywhere and it hurt like a *****. Why did that happen?
Kojiro19 (4): Oh, you censored that word. You *****.
Melkior477 (5): Hmm. Interesting.
Kojiro19 (4): Don’t you “hmm” me.
Melkior477 (5): What’s your Strength score?
Kojiro19 (4): 48.
Melkior477 (5): And your Fortitude score?
Kojiro19 (4): 25.
Melkior477 (5): Well, there’s your answer.
Fatima72 (10): Are you saying our Strength scores are so much higher than our Fortitude scores that we’ll hurt ourselves when we throw a punch?
Melkior477 (5): Yes.
EnzoTheBaker (13): There must be some way to get around it.
Melkior477 (5): Probably.
Melkior477 (5): We’re done with the “punch” tangent. Let’s move on to introductions for Nine. She hasn’t talked for a while. I need to scroll up to ping her.
Mekior477 (5): It’s your turn for introductions TyrantMoon.
TyrantMoon (8): Sorry.
TyrantMoon (8): My username is TyrantMoon, but you can call me Katya. I’m a 30-year-old reporter from Florida. If possible, I’d like to reach a non-violent compromise with the players.
Svenheim (1): Unlikely, methinks.
Melkior477 (5): A non-violent ceasefire would be the best-case scenario. I would also like to reach a compromise with the players, Katya.
Kojiro19 (4): Hey Five, do you think you could stop sounding like the CEO of a company? I got enough corpo-speak in the Old World.
Melkior477 (5): This is how I talk.
Kojiro19 (4): I doubt it.
Fatima72 (10): I’m next right?
Kojiro19 (4): Yes
Fatima72 (10): You can call me Fatima. I spawned in Fulvang. I was with a group that got stuck behind the Deluvians’ front line. I was the last of my group to die. We were found by a horde of Deluvians after several hours. I was stabbed to death.
Kojiro19 (4): Ok
Melkior477 (5): Thank you for sharing, I’m sure that was a harrowing experience. Eleven?
Poldra (11): That’s me. I’m Poldra. I’m a musician from North Carolina. I was defending Osiris’s East Gate with Enzo when I died. Apparently, according to Enzo, we were hit with artillery. As far as I remember, I was alive one moment and dead the next.
Svenheim (1): Lucky.
Poldra (11): I completely agree. I didn’t have to go through the whole messy process like you guys did.
CosmiCrow (7) has joined!
Kojiro19 (4): Hey, it’s new Seven. He finally answered his messages.
CosmiCrow (7): I was busy.
Svenheim (1): With what?
CosmiCrow (7): Talking with the sorcerers.
EnzoTheBaker (13): I feel like I’ve heard your username before.
Melkior477 (5): We’re doing introductions. Do you want to introduce yourself, CosmiCrow?
CosmiCrow (7): Sure. Most people call me Crow or Cosmic. I played a bit of Ninth Oasis before this, so I have a bit of experience. I tried to kill GM when he came to New Arcadia. It… didn’t work.
Poldra (11): Hey, has anybody given the new guy the low-down.
Svenheim (1): What?
Poldra (11): Has anybody told Crow everything that happened with GM and Nailman?
Kojiro19 (4): Me and Talwar did.
Poldra (11): And I’m sure you two boys were very sensitive when you shared that information.
Kojiro19 (4): Absolutely not. He took it pretty well, though.
CosmiCrow (7): I’m grateful to Nailman. I wouldn’t be “alive” right now if not for him.
Melkior477 (5): What is existence, anyway?
Kojiro19 (4): Shut up, nerd.
Melkior477 (5): Is a human being not merely an emergent entity? Sure, we may be molecularly different than we were a few hours ago, and our constituent parts may be altered, but - in terms of the perception others have of us and the perception we have of ourselves - are we not exactly the same? If we are indistinguishable from our past selves and our past selves are dead, then who is to say we are not them? In the absence of a greater claimant, do we not have the greatest claim to personhood?
Svenheim (1): What the **** are you talking about?
Kojiro19 (4): NERD
Kojiro19 (4) has been banned.
Talwar13 (2): hey! who put u in charge?
Svenheim (1): Hey, man, don’t ban people for insulting you.
TyrantMoon (8): I just died. I don’t want to think right now.
EnzoTheBaker (13) Can we get back to introductions?
Melkior477 (5): There are two separate forms of identity: descriptive and numerical. If the room in which Hegel lectured was identical to the room Schopenhauer lectured in, then the rooms would be descriptively but not numerically identical. We are descriptively identical, but perhaps not numerically identical. Or perhaps we are numerically identical? Are we temporally persistent with our past selves? We disappeared in one world and, after a few hours, appeared in a new one. Temporally speaking, there is no direct contradiction. The engram and the individual never existed in two places simultaneously.
TyrantMoon (8): I would look up some of the concepts you just mentioned on my phone, but I don’t have one.
CosmiCrow (7): What?
Salieri2408 (8): I think I kind of understand what you’re saying. What does it mean to be “numerically identical?”
Svenheim (1): Not to quote Melkior, but “can we get back on track?”
Melkior477 (5): Sorry. I just had to put my thoughts into words.
Svenheim (1): You’re a weird dude, do you know that?
Melkior477 (5): I am aware. Dendrite.
Dendrite4 (12): Hey, I’m Dendrite. My name in real life is Enoch. I was defending the East Gate when I died. I was stabbed by Orcs, and then I died.
CosmiCrow (7): Orcs?
EnzoTheBaker (13): That’s what Ashcroft called the Deluvians with grey skin. The name kind of caught on at Osiris.
CosmiCrow (7): Ashcroft is in Osiris?
Dendrite4 (12): Yeah. He gave a speech on unity and resistance before the Deluvians assaulted the city.
CosmiCrow (7): Concerning.
Melkior477 (5): And finally, Thirteen.
EnzoTheBaker (13): Hello, I’m Enzo, real name Geoffrey Lachlan (or would “old name” be more accurate). I died of blood loss while defending the East Gate of Osiris, exactly the same as Dendrite. I was an accountant in Wisconsin.
Melkior477 (5): Accountant, you say?
EnzoTheBaker (13): Oh no.
Melkior477 (5): I’m sure our Deluvian armies could use someone skilled in accounting.
EnzoTheBaker (13): Maybe. Balancing the books for a small business is not the same as handling logistics for an entire army, by the way.
Kojiro19 (4) has joined!
Kojiro19 (4): Oy! *******!