Chương 92: 3.17 Blackest Eyes - Porcupine Tree (4:23)

ClickWhirr NGL, I really don't want Zeke heading back to the House of Seasons. I get why he's doing it. His group is exhausted, running low on water and food, the Deadlands is turning into a warzone - because ReCoil and Crush had Zeke screw everyone over - and the House is the closest thing to a "safe" location that he's got right now. It makes sense. That's not why I don't want him headed there. Part of me feels like we've got everything we were supposed to get out of the House arc.

I don't want him looping back to something we already covered already. Before all of you start jumping on me, saying that I think that the House sucks. I don't. On the contrary, it's one of my favorite locations in Frontiers. The atmosphere of the house alone clears most other areas in the game. But Zeke was already there. He already wrote about it. He uncovered the hidden route through the manor and FarField proved that he wasn't just spouting bosheet. The House arc is finished.

This feels less like he's covering new ground with his story, and more like he's circling around to the site of his first big victory and he's taking a victory lap. HandswithoutArms | The House arc is finished. | Apparently it isn't. There's no way Zeke is headed back there unless he's pointing us to a secret that we haven't found yet. Perhaps we're all making a mistake in the assumption that the house is "solved" just because the route was found.

It could be that we all only scratched the surface to what's in the House and he's trying to draw our attention back there. MangoChutney Nah. It's more likely that he's trying to wrap up loose plot threads before he leaves Frontiers altogether. Joshua_Kei ^Mango. The story feels jarringly fast compared to before, and part of the reason I was drawn to the story was the dynamics of this forum and Zeke, and how we reconciled what we knew about the game with what Zeke was writing.

Like us explaining to him the Blooming Witch, the Under-MIZ, the Flooded Neighborhoods, even the Janus Storm. MangoChutney EXACTLY. It feels fast because he's going fast and he wants to get out of Frontiers because he doesn't have anything else to add. Early on when he was writing, it felt like it was someone uncovering hidden lore we've always just walked on by. Now it feels like he's actively creating new lore because the story has moved beyond what Frontiers mechanically allows players to do.

I'm not saying it's bad. I'm still enjoying the story and everything. But the fic has slowly shifted from discovery to mythmaking. Think about the history of his updates. Early on he did the House, Corva, and then the Witness Chambers. It was all about fresh new lore that we never saw and he was trying to draw our attention to. In between the House and Corva he touched on the Valley of Echoes and wrote about the Vash and Concordant and a massive battle that was only of interest to, like, three people.

But we all forgave him for touching on lore we couldn't independently verify because he was also uncovering stuff we hadn't known about. Now, his fic is going into the Janus Storm and it's headed back to the House of Seasons. It feels like he's written less House and more Valley of Echoes. Wolololololo That's been my issue too. I've been meh about the last couple updates he's dropped because we can't build any of what he's saying into the Zeke-runs.

With Frontiers, it is literally impossible to see inside the Janus Storm pod. You can't unlock it and it doesn't correlate to any quests. At first there were a bunch of us who thought that he was trying to get us to unlock a quest or something so we could get into the pod, but then we used the Witness Chambers' chair and the interior doesn't even render. It's just this blank void because the devs never did anything with it.

If we're being generous, he's writing about content that was supposed to be added to Syndicate's and never was because Severance went bankrupt. That's fine and good and all, but it doesn't help those of us interested in uncovering more actionable secrets and lore. InnerMarrow | it doesn't help those of us interested in uncovering more actionable secrets | Trust in the process. Trust in the story. Trust in the Z3ke. Craaazzzzy The Z3ke? Really? Really? MinMaxMike And thus did the Z3ke descend.

And he looked upon his audience, and with a powerful voice did say "shut yo mouth when you're talking to me!" And his audience did say "yes sir. Whenever you wish to uncover the lore, we shall follow." And there were chants of "eleven," that followed him. SpicyShoyu Jeezus. But seriously, Mango and Wolo are making some good points. This fic used to feel like Zeke was writing about stuff we could all go and check out.

Now it's like the whole thing has gone so far off the rails that he's got to make up facts whole cloth. Not saying it's a bad thing, but it's definitely not what got me into the story in the first place. I'm not like Venerated or Binary, being all anti-fanfic over here. I will say though that it's veering more towards simple fanfic territory than what it was like early on. VeneratedWitchHunter?? How am I catching strays? Lexi Wait! Blooming Witch!! Seasons!!

Since Zeke got rid of both stopgaps created to contain the Fracture, does he now have to go find a solution to the problem? He said that the Blooming Witch created the House of Seasons as a way to remember her family, but it also had a physical effect on Zeke. He physically felt the heat and the cold and flowers etc. I wonder if he has to convince her to help him and she can terraform the Deadlands instead. Quantum_Amelia Fingers Crossed! I hope the Blooming Witch will be happy to see you again.

I know she specializes in space magic, but maybe she could be of help with the ecological disaster the Deadlands is becoming. Chick8da_swarm Oh snap! That's true. Maybe Zeke was like Plethora and he knew that ReCoil and Crush screwed over the Deadlands and was waiting for one of us to catch on. Now he's headed to the one person who can help repair all the bad advice that he was given. MushroomCleric | I know she specializes in space magic | I'm not actually sure she does. I mean, she does but…

do you all think that's what Zeke is trying to tell us? That we're not thinking about the Blooming Witch in the right way? StoryLeech Bro, you got to finish the thought before you hit post. I didn't really get much from that. MushroomCleric What I mean is that everyone always points to the Blooming Witch as THE spatial magic user. It's what everyone knows her for. But what if she's more than that? Is she good with space magic? Undoubtedly.

But space magic alone doesn't let you create emotional echoes, an impossible climate mansion, weird moving architecture, and a house that seemingly reacts to people. Maybe Zeke is saying that there's more going on there and we need to look closer. Think of everything that we "knew" about her before Zeke came along. This forum had mostly flattened her out into being just another optional boss. Then Zeke waltzed in here and wrote about how she was ancient and grieving the loss of her friends and family.

It showed us a different facet to her character. What if he's trying to say that there's so much more about her that we haven't uncovered. Dusted=Static On the one hand, it feels like you're drinking the kool-aid to cope with the fact that we're entering a lull in the story. On the other, it's true that none of us really know much about the Blooming Witch and Zeke's surprised us before. Lexi pointed out that the House of Seasons is an insane thing. It's one of the most impossible structures in all of Frontiers.

Hallways go on forever, distance is getting folded, and a single building has four different seasons blasting through it. The Blooming Witch BUILT that place. Or at least she helped to build it at a minimum. That's not something a person casually does unless they're on a completely different level from normal magic users. CigaretteBurns I guess we'll find out one way or another when he gets to the House.

Either the Blooming Witch is happy to see him again, or she's absolutely furious that he just broke the Deadlands and is now asking her to fix it. Either she can help Zeke clean up the mess he made, or she's going to be pissed because he dragged an apocalypse to her front door. Hambones | it's veering more towards simple fanfic territory than what it was like early on. | Another thing that's changed with his fic is Zeke himself.

After the article dropped I went back and read some of his early updates, and the difference between current Zeke and early-story Zeke is insane. This is the same guy who used to panic whenever somebody suggested he do something dangerous. Remember when Crush told him that he needs to go after the Reclaimer? Zeke told him to go fuck himself and Grave temp-banned him because of it. It was hilarious and made sense for his character. He was terrified of everything back then.

He was freaked out by the Glens, the Eaters, the House of Seasons, leaving The MIZ, fighting the bone kaiju, and even his own class abilities. Now, if you read through his last updates you see that it's like he's grown a spine. I'm not sure that's all that better for the story though. It's like he's an entirely different character.

He told us all that he didn't want to do dangerous stuff but then he turns right around and drives directly into the Janus Storm and then tells us all about wandering through its halls while the walls screamed at him. TVEye YES! I'm glad someone else is seeing it. The whole story has taken a weird turn when you look at the two Zekes. Old Zeke: guys I think there's something chasing me 🙁 Current Zeke: I'm going to fistfight god!

NullSigil Getting chased by soul-eating monsters, Mad Max villains, and wall faces changes a guy. Don't be too hard on him. MangoChutney No. Hambones is onto something. There was a shift that happened in the story. I think it was when Patch got put in the chair and Zeke got kidnapped. Early in the story Zeke was acting like a normal dood who'd been forced into a dangerous situation. Now he feels more theatrical and dramatic.

I think what happened was he saw people reading his fanfic and now he thinks he needs to entertain us and he's leaning into the "Z3ke" thing. He knows there's an audience and he needs to keep them entertained. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Plethora Am I the only one who is actually reading his stuff? He literally spelled out what's happening to him. Think back to when he went into the Under-MIZ. He'd just been swindled by the mayor of the Holdfast.

He was hauling supplies through the Flooded Neighborhoods using his storage space and then he had that talk with the soldier who knew the mayor when they were kids. The guy talked about how the mayor had changed because he got his social skills up to a higher rank. Zeke might as well have hung up a giant neon sign of an arrow that pointed to the conversation and said "THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT LATER ON." Let me all ask you something. What was he like back during the Under-MIZ arc?

I just read through it, so maybe I can remember more than everyone else. But he was basically terrified of his Persona skill. He'd just been attacked by scavengers in the Crushed Skirt, and then forced to march through the Flooded Neighborhoods while soldiers put down split maws and a whole host of other creatures. But it was the Persona skill that terrified him more than anything else. He was worried that his class skills were changing how he behaved around other people.

He repeatedly talked about how he was more comfortable talking, improvising, exaggerating, acting, and manipulating social situations. That was a big chunk of one of his updates and he came to the forum to ask you all about it. What did you all tell him? You said that he was changing naturally. Trauma changes people. Surviving Frontiers changes people. The confidence that comes from surviving impossible situations and defying death changes people. You were all true. Sure.

People change when they go through terrible ordeals. But then Mango pointed out that the major shift in the story happened after Patch entered the Witness Chambers and Zeke was kidnapped. So let me ask you all another question. What else happened around that exact same time? Can any of you think about what he did that would have had a major change on him? JimothyTheBarber I see where you're going Plethora. It's all because Zeke helped build Patch's bar. He got in touch with his roots. Bartender arc supremacy FTW!

RedCarpetManiac Uh, the big one is that he learned that his music can cause riots. What, you're saying he grew more confident because of that, and that's why he's doing crazier and crazier things? BaryByBax OH SHIT. The elixir. He drank the elixir he got from the Pale Regiment while he was in the Chapel Pit. That was around the time everything changed. Plethora | The elixir. | Yes. He drank an elixir that boosted one of his skills up to Level 7.

If that happened in one of the games none of us would think twice about it, but Zeke has shown that he's interested in a lot of the details that most of us would skip over in the games. He drank the elixir and his Performance skill increased dramatically. I think most people interpreted that far too literally. Everyone is assuming it only meant musical performance. But ask yourself one simple question. How does Zeke interact with us? Through a tech slate. Most likely through speech-to-text.

That means every update he gives, every dramatic retelling of events, every argument, every sarcastic reply, and every live description of the horrors that he encounters… is a performance. And who is the audience? Us. Ask yourself another question. What makes a "better" performance? Refusing to enter the Janus Pod and peeing yourself and telling his audience to screw off while running and hiding? Or marching directly into the apocalypse while narrating the whole experience to hundreds of readers in real time?

The answer seems pretty obvious to me. He already told everyone that he was worried about his skills changing him. Social skills are dangerous because eventually the line between his behavior and audience expectations is going to blur. There's going to be a point where Zeke stops asking what he should do and starts asking "what makes for a better show?"

THREAD: HOUSE OF SEASONS PT. 2 USER: Z3ke Z3ke (Original Poster) Um. Okay. I'm gonna need some help here because everything is so fucked up. Something happened and I'm not sure what and it's all shit now. We're all in the House of Seasons right now and I'm gonna try to tell you all what happened but this might be a bunch of rambling because I'm not sure what happened and we're all still trying to figure it out and… okay. We made it to the House a few hours ago.

After my last post, we were driving through the Deadlands. Jackie was still behind the wheel and I was in the passenger seat half-sleeping. I pointed her in the direction of where I remember the House of Seasons being and just told her to go and she went. While we were driving I was drifting in and out of sleep. I'd close my eyes but suddenly I'd be back in the pod with the walls and the faces and I could remember how the place felt alive.

I'd be nodding off to sleep and then suddenly jerk awake because I heard someone whispering next to me but when I looked there was no one. Elnor was in the backseat, stretched out and murmuring under his breath and every once in a while he'd perk up and ask Jackie where we were and she'd just answer "still driving." I know I already told you all about how the Deadlands had changed and felt different now, but it bears repeating. I really wanna drive home the point that everything was wrong.

Back before this whole mess, while I was wandering through the place with Cole and them, the Deadlands was dangerous. But it was a predictable sort of danger. You know what… I'm stalling. I'm just gonna say that everything about the Deadlands feels more abandoned there and just leave it at that. Dark was settling in when we finally got to where the House was supposed to be. I saw something out in the distance through the windshield and it looked like the ruins that I'd been running towards the last time I was here.

I remember running to it back when the Eaters were chasing me and knew that, once we got close, we'd be stumbling into the House. But then we got closer and closer and I started realizing something was wrong. The first time I stumbled across the House, I didn't see the actual House. The thing I'd been running to was just a bunch of ruins sticking up out of the ground, and when I got close I was sucked into a weird pocket space that deposited me in the middle of the foyer.

The actual House lived somewhere that wasn't… here. The ruins had just been the entrance. This time though… this time there wasn't any sort of transition. I didn't get that sudden twisting in my stomach and there wasn't the feeling of gravity suddenly not existing and there wasn't some impossible shift that made me want to vomit. The House just… appeared. It was there. Again, I'm not saying this right. I'd seen the ruins out in the distance and we drove up to them and the ruins were the House.

Trees surrounded the House but they'd all rotted away. The impossible seasons that existed outside the windows when I'd been in the House were completely gone. It was just the grey of the Deadlands, no autumn leaves or winter snows or summer haze. Back when I'd been here the first time I'd seen flowers blooming outside frozen windows and there was snow in one section and warm sunlight bathing another. The whole place was this impossible, beautiful, eerie thing.

But now it had all collapsed into the same gray rot that covered everything in the Deadlands. There weren't any flowers and there wasn't any snow and there wasn't any warmth. Jackie slowed the jeep and we rolled up to the front of the House and none of us spoke. We just parked and Jackie and I got out and stared up at the dead thing I'd pointed us to and claimed it was safe.

We just stood there for a few minutes, both of us looking out at this decrepit house in front of us, before she finally turned to me and asked quietly "is this the place?" I nodded because that was all I could do as I stared at the thing that had once been the House of Seasons. The walls were split open like some gigantic clawed hand had come through and smashed everything. The second floor had collapsed inwards and the windows were all shattered and the roof had caved in in places.

I walked forward, thinking that maybe if I got closer I'd be teleported into the foyer and find that the House wasn't actually dead and instead it was all just some weird mirage or my mind was playing tricks on me. But that's not what happened. When I got close I crossed a threshold or something and a horrible cold crawled up my spine. It was like I was walking into a hospital room where somebody had just died.

Movement behind me caught my attention and I saw Jackie reaching into the jeep to grab the shotgun and Elnor slowly climbing out of the backseat. He was looking a lot better than when we'd been in the pod, but I could tell he still wasn't at 100% He stepped up next to me and stared up at the House and then quietly said "someone was here. Someone broke this place." Which, I mean, fucking obviously. Right?

But at the same time, it was good to hear somebody else say it and let me know they were also seeing the impossibility of what was facing us. We stepped into the entrance of the House. The front doors that had once been locked shut and kept me trapped inside had now been ripped off their hinges. One was hanging crookedly while the other was splintered into pieces and scattered across the floor of the foyer. The inside of the House was a complete mess.

Furniture had been overturned and the walls were covered in scorch marks and deep gouges. It looked like someone had taken a bunch of axes to the place and had tried to cause as much damage as physically possible. I stood in the wreckage for a moment before Jackie nudged my shoulder and nodded at one of the walls. There was a circle carved there with symbols and numbers and letters dotted all around it. That one circle drew my attention and seemingly showed me all the others that were scattered about the place.

There were circles carved into the walls and the floors and the furniture. Some were carved into the floorboards while others were painted onto the wall in a black oily substance. Some were half-finished and some had been abandoned and some looked burned and some looked ancient and some looked fresh. In front of the staircase leading to the second floor was a massive circle that had been carved so deeply into the floor that the boards underneath had splintered apart.

I stood in the middle of the foyer and remembered when I'd first got here. Back then there were four hallways that stretched out into the seasonal wings. Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter. The hallways leading into the wings were impossibly long, seemingly stretching for miles. You could walk for several minutes before reaching the next wing. But now… Now I could stand in the foyer and stare down the hallways and see into the next wing.

I took a step into the Spring Wing and, after only about twenty feet or so, reached the wing. The magic of the House was dead or broken or… something. I went back to the middle of the foyer and looked down the Winter wing and saw the hallway stretching impossibly far before it abruptly collapsed into rubble. The Summer wing had been where I'd found food and drink before, but when I took five steps into the hallway the ceiling suddenly shot upwards thirty feet and then snapped back to normal a couple steps later.

Jackie was next to me, looking around, nervous about this House that I'd tried to tell them was safe. Elnor was beside her, staring at the strange symbols on the floors and wall. The worst part of all this was that the echoes were gone. I knew they were, before I'd even checked. I could feel their absence. The House just felt different without them there. Even after solving their little puzzles and helping them move on, I'd somehow been able to feel them in the House.

The gardener and the father and the sister had still been there, even after they'd "disappeared." It was like their essence had remained in the House. Like they'd just gone dormant instead of disappearing entirely. Now there was nothing. They were all gone. I knew that if I'd kept exploring I wouldn't suddenly stumble across ghostly figures replaying fragments of memory or people trapped in emotional loops.

The House of Seasons was supposed to be packed with the remnants of everyone who'd ever lived there, but now there was nothing. There weren't any echoes and, what's more, the danger that I used to be able to feel from the second floor was entirely gone. There was nothing here but silence.

"This place seriously has water?" Jackie asked as she stared out at the destruction.

"It used to," I said.

"But…" I just drifted off. I couldn't explain what had happened here. Jackie muttered something under her breath and strode off in search of supplies. Elnor and I stayed in the foyer and just stared at the walls. A minute later Elnor crouched down next to me and looked at one of the circles carved into the floorboards. He looked up at me and then back to the circle and then reached out to it. When his hand got close his expression twisted and he jerked his hand back like the symbol had burned him.

"What? What was that?" I asked. He looked up at me with a shocked expression before turning back to the symbol.

"It's scraped clean."

"... What?!"

"Scraped clean," he reiterated, as if that at all explained anything. When he noticed I wasn't understanding he continued.

"Normal houses have imprints in them. Emotions that are left by the previous occupants. They soak into the walls. You get years of memories and emotions. But this place… this place is empty." He stood slowly and then walked over to one of the walls and put his hand against it. Then he started walking, slowly, through the place. It was like he was listening to something. He didn't pass out like what had happened in the pod, so that was good. And while he walked I followed him.

His eyes were closed and I saw his face scrunch up, not from pain or suffering. It was the same face that people make when they're trying to concentrate really hard. It was like whatever had allowed him to use his psychometry was giving him a hard time here. Finally, he started to describe things to me as he walked. Grief and obsession and pleading and rage and desperation. He said that somebody had come to the House in search of answers. He said they were searching for something.

As we walked deeper through the manor, Elnor kept talking and his voice started getting this distance to it. It was like he wasn't fully present with me anymore and had instead been sent back to… whenever.

"There was a man here," he said quietly.

"He was tall and…he was old. There was an ancientness to him. An old sorrow." He stopped beside the hall that led to the Winter wing and frowned.

"He kept asking questions. He wanted methods. He wanted anchors." We stepped over shattered furniture while Elnor dragged his fingers along the wall.

"He was angry that she wouldn't help him. The woman. He said she was… she was holding back. She wouldn't listen to him. She wouldn't help. She didn't understand. There was grief. I can feel rage and… something more." We found another circle carved into the floor of what used to be the Autumn wing. I wanted to check and see if the library was still there, but Elnor was crouched beside the circle and rubbing his hands against it.

He slapped at it with his hands, the way you'd quickly touch something to see if it was hot. I pat pat patted at it and, finding it was acceptable (I guess) he rested his hand against it. Then he froze. His expression shifted from confusion into recognition. And then horror.

"He…he fought. He wanted to kill her. He tried to kill her. But he…couldn't? Or he did? He was shouting and screaming at her, asking why she wouldn't help him. Asking why she couldn't help him save his little girls." My stomach dropped and I knew exactly what had happened here. I knew that this was my fault. I knew that I'd caused this.

"What did he look like?" I asked. I knew the answer to that question, but I asked anyway. Elnor shut his eyes tight and it took a few minutes before he gave me a description.

"He was tall. Thin. Wearing an old jacket. He had an eye that looked exhausted. Long dark hair streaked with gray." I knew. I knew who it was. Corva. It was Corva. Corva hadn't been killed back in the Deadlands when he'd attacked Cole and Pell and Wren and me. He'd escaped somehow. The second realization that struck was worse than finding the House destroyed. He didn't destroy this place out of greed or madness alone. He'd been searching for something. I could remember when we'd been in the Valley of Echoes.

I'd told him and Cole that I'd seen echoes like what lived in the Valley before. I'd told Corva about the House of Seasons. I'd fucking drawn him a map. I'd sent him here and he broke this place because I'd given him directions to it.