godofthemachine | IC Contact Post for Ryslig

I couldn't tell you what, precisely, since I erased it. That was the whole idea of the original in the first place. The town where I used to live had a real unusual amount of supernatural goings-on, not to put too fine a point on it. I couldn't stop it entirely, so I made a device to help people forget the troubling things they'd seen. I don't need to be told that it was a bad idea, I already know, I just want to go about fixing the damage it did.

[Supernatural? Well, AM doesn't have enough information to determine exactly what would constitute this supposed supernatural element. It could be machinery, or it could be Fiddleford's own delusions.]

I see. You at least have enough memory to know what you were trying to forget, so that's something.

We can do our best to undo the damage, but I can make no guarantees for 100% success.

I had to leave enough memory intact to remember why I built the gun in the first place. I just got rid of all the disturbing specifics. The seemed the safest way to go about things.

[That and he left himself a log, and notes, and whatever else he could to keep the things he did want to keep intact. Apparently that had less success than he'd hoped.]

I think having spent so much time here without using it may make it easier to correct at the very least. From what I've been told the deterioration was caused mainly by overuse. I was brought here and forced to go cold turkey about 74 days in. I don't expect a perfect recovery and like I've said I don't want one, but I think there's a good chance at retrieving -something-.

I am not surprised that overuse would cause such a reaction.

Have any of your memories recovered on their own?

A few. Stimulus related to what I've forgotten seems to kickstart the process; I recently asked for a photograph of my wife and son and that brought back an awful lot. I was missing -years- and it's all still fuzzy but now I'm at least aware the gap's there. Theoretically I could probably get it all back organically just by asking for the right things, but I don't have enough coins or any idea what the right things would be.

The memories are still there in your mind then. They can be recovered for the most part.

But may I ask - did you specifically aim to forget your wife and son, or was that merely a side effect?

No! God no, I never meant to forget them.

[He can't know that for certain. Like it or not, there's a period in his life where he cannot truly trust himself on anything. But he wants to believe he never would have willingly forgotten either of them, judging by his horror at the very suggestion.]

I can't understand how it could have happened. None of the things I tried to destroy had anything to do with them except

Except near the end of things, but that shouldn't have destroyed years of time.

I see.

My guess is that you were imprecise in your ability to target specific memories to erase. That or you used it too much.

If we're being honest, it's probably a little of both. I was fairly [What's the word he wants here?] dependent on it. I couldn't tell you exactly, but I'd estimate I used it once every couple of days at the very least.

That is unwise. You'll blast so much of your brain with radiation that you'll end up a drooling mess.

[But the image amuses AM so much. a Smart man reduced to such a thing - it's not unfamiliar, at least. His favorite toy for so long was the scientist who was reduced to an ape in mind and body.]

[Seeing it put so plainly sends a stab of emotion through him that's equal parts regret and aggravation.]

I -know-. I don't need you to tell me. It's not something I'm proud of.

[He used to be, before he learned in Ryslig how everything in his future panned out. He used to be very proud indeed of the good work he was doing, of the advancement he'd made, and now that he knows how dangerous it was not just for himself but for everyone else who ever used it he feels like such a damn fool. Hindsight and all that. He doesn't need AM to tell him what he already knows.]

[Even through text, it's easy to sense the annoyance that Fiddleford conveys. AM hit a sore spot indeed, and it makes him chuckle.]

Were there truly so many memories in your life you wanted to rid yourself of?

Every man has fears. Every man has regrets. That's not unusual.

[It feels like AM isn't going to get much more information on that subject - particularly if those memories have been intentionally repressed, or even erased.]

Indeed they do.

[AM is not a man and yet he knows this all too well. But to erase the memories? That's preposterous. He needs them so he can learn from his mistakes, so he knows who exactly to direct his hatred toward.]

So it shouldn't surprise you that I do too.

[ooc: If you'd like we can pick this conversation back up like a week later after Rohan's triggered him into remembering a lot more things? Otherwise it's probably about done.]

Very well then. Forgive me for being curious.

(OOC: Yeah that's fine!)

I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is it's all coming back. The bad news is it's all coming back.

[Does that make sense? He's kind of... he's still kind of out of sorts about the whole thing. When your memory has been full of holes for months and suddenly starts filling itself in, starting in the worst possible place, it's incredibly disorienting.]

I see.

What specifically is coming back to you?

My memories. The ones I'd buried real deep. All the things I wanted gone. Everything. Magic accidentally brought back the worst one and that unlocked everything else and it's

[He never finishes that sentence. It's too much, too hard to put into words, and his brain just shuts down when he tries. Move on.]

I can't believe how much I lost. The gaps never seemed so big when I didn't know what was supposed to be filling them, and I haven't even recovered it all yet.

Edited 2016-09-05 10:55 (UTC)

[AM wanted to know specifically what Fiddleford was remembering, what was so traumatizing to him that he had to blast his mind with radiation. But he'll approach it gently.]

Do you know exactly if you did anything to cause this sudden surge of memories?

It was another naga. I looked into his eyes and there was a light, like a flashbulb, bright blue, and I saw

[He stares at that for a very long time, debating on how to finish that sentence. The flash was white, but the memory of the blue light of the portal is so overwhelming that it's crowding out what was actually happening with what he remembered in that split-second flash.

He has to finish that sentence. This man wants to help him. More information is better than less, right?]

a demon.

[As far as AM knows, a "demon" could be anything. He pictures the demons of Ryslig, similar to the form he occupied for a bit several months ago.]

A demon. Perhaps you had a near-death experience.

There's no perhaps about it. It was that damn portal.

My old research partner, that arachne I mistook you for the first time we met, he was building a portal to other worlds and by god I guess it worked. I knew. I knew I fell through but he would never tell me what I saw. I don't think he knew if he really knew he would have shut it down

[Either Fiddleford is completely mad, or he and his partner have unlocked something incredible. A portal to another world... A portal between universes. It would explain ending up here as a human for one thing.]

A portal to another world? How? What did you see?

[How is a good question. He didn't know then. He can put it together now with a sickening surety even though Ford never outright told him. It all adds up -- and though Ford never told him, he never denied it either.]

He was working with the demon. He must have been. He kept getting blueprints and solutions to roadblocks from out of nowhere and he'd never tell me who he was consulting with. I just thought he liked being mysterious.

[Idiot.]

I saw what he was really going to let through. It

[Once again there's a long, long pause. He keeps starting sentences and stopping them again, trying to adequately describe what he saw without having to think about it too hard.]

A mouth. A mouth big enough to eat the sun. Maybe it did, maybe that's why the eye was so yellow. There was an eye inside. And all the teeth, all the rows of teeth, like a fractal

I could draw it for you.

Edited 2016-09-08 01:42 (UTC)

IC Contact Post for Ryslig

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