Dissonance Theorem
| Dissonance Theorem | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Taranis Lú | |||||||||
| Geodesic | |||||||||
Summary
Geodesic is summoned to meet Taranis Lú, who guides her to the Resonance Realms to help her reconnect with her distorted Resonance.
Background
Geodesic is spending a lazy Sunday afternoon watching Combat Biker games from throughout the week, as her brother prepares for the beginning of the school year over at the table. Suddenly she receives a message in the form of a paper crane. The message claims that the mysterious sender is familiar with cases like hers and promises they can help her, giving her the location of a host on the Grid. Suspicious and paranoid, Geodesic dives into VR to hunt down this host, which takes the form of a small fishing boat on the outskirts of the Emerald City grid.
The Meet
Geodesic boards the boat, infiltrating the host. She sails out to deep virtual waters and finds an octopus-like persona with white eyes teaching a lesson on Matrix infrastructure in Japanese. Paranoid, and looking to gain more information, Geodesic marks the octopus persona, then fails to snoop it, getting revealed. The persona just messages her, asking her to sit down and wait until after the class, which she begrudgingly does. After the students leave, the octopus persona greets her, introducing himself as Taranis Lú, professor at Kyoto University. She's paranoid about his offer of help, doubly so after he reveals his past as a member of Ex Pacis and Deus's Whites. He tells her that he seeks atonement for his sins and to help others who suffered like he did. Despite Geodesic's reservations, she accepts his help, and he brings her back out onto the Grid.
The Plan
Taranis asks Geodesic if she's ever been to the Resonance Realms before. She tells him she hasn't, that she's looked into it but the methods described were esoteric and hard for her to deeply understand. He brings out a digital tuning fork, explaining that the Resonance is similar to a sine wave, and that thoughts and disruptions affect that sine wave, but that it can be brought into alignment. This mathematical explanation seems to work better for Geo, and using the fork, under the watch of Taranis, she slips deeper, arriving at the Great Firewall. She passes through, finding herself in one of her more troubling memories - the first time she took a life, desperately defending herself with her Ruger from a stranger bearing down on her and Oliver shortly after becoming homeless. In this memory, the stranger doesn't die, instead leaking black ichor and suggesting she give in to the peace of oblivion. She's unsettled by his offer, but with her resolution to protect Oliver, continues struggling, and eventually the scene fades. Geo finds herself falling through the sky towards a vast digital desert.