Characters
- Name: Benon Economou (he, him) (Matt)
Occupation: Ex-Revolutionary/Treasure Hunter
Anchor: Olimpia Caporale (International Print Journalist, thinks of her as a daughter) - Name: Edgar Reese (he, him) (Daniel Fowler)
Occupation: Private Detective
Anchor: Camelia Reese, honor student going to the same school as Clyde’s granddaughter.
The Postcard
When the M-Cell Friendlies (Benon and Edgar) enter into Carcosa, they suddenly remember stuff about Carcosa – memories that were buried in their minds but suddenly activated.
They perceive these newly-acquired memories as if they received a postcard from Carcosa, that, if they turn it over, see the phrases “YOU WERE ALWAYS HERE. WELCOME HOME.”
The postcard talks about how the Macallister Building (which they suddenly realize is the bunker where Abigail Wright, the CIO of March Technologies, is located) the Dorchester House (the apartment building where Sunshine and Dr. Dallan are located), and the Hotel Broadablin (the afterlife) has all being consumed by the King in Yellow.
Ythil, the setting of the play “The King in Yellow”, is also being consumed. Time, however, has no place here in Carcosa, so the city will always be consumed. Forever.
Benon and Edgar believe that the name of Ythil is misspelled; it should be named after the Great Race of the Yith.
The Queue
Benon and Edgar eventually made it to the city of Ythil, and begin waiting in line near the palace. The line consists of the wealthy and influential people of this city, who will wait every night here for the party, which will be held in perpetuity.
The guards, all mannequins, examine each person, checking for a valid invitation, and then searching a person for any weapons. If they have a weapon, then the guards will confiscate it and store it somewhere.
Benon and Edgar are interested in one of the items that was confiscated – a time bomb. They speculate that the mannequins are looking for weapons because it is possible for the King in Yellow to be slain, and they want to forestall the possibility. Benon had alcoholic beverages that he acquired from the Hotel, and he kept them in his pockets. Meanwhile, Edgar hide the guns within his costume (an overly-large wig).
Benon and Edgar, because they never used the Carcosan favor while in the “real world”, instead received valid invitations.
While Benon and Edgar wait in line, Dr. Mark Sanchez and Harry Kowalski arrive, coming to visit. Both Mark and Harry were former M-Cell Friendlies – Mark was compelled to leave the “real world” to enter into Carcosa, while Harry was murdered when his timeline was destroyed due to “time travel”. Both managed to get jobs working in Carcosa.
Dr. Mark Sanchez gave Benon and Edgar a book revealing the truth about the Preparation Room, a place in Carcosa where all timelines are manufactured. Benon and Edgar see photos of their pocket fluff, the King in Yellow play they acquired from the bookstore, the footlocker in Cylde’s cabin, etc. … all in the act of being constructed. They also see the area where timelines are assembled, in preparation for the performance.
Benon and Edgar are horrified to learn that everything about their life is artificial. Harry Kowlaski is happy, because it revealed that any items manufactured here in Carcosa can be taken down into the “real world”, but Edgar point out that there’s no point in that as it’s all fake.
Edgar: “Are you really interested in getting drug kickbacks?”
Both Benon and Edgar believe that if their life is ultimately fake, then it hardened their resolve to attack and destroy the King in Yellow, and burn everything down here.
Edgar tries to examine Dr. Mark Sanchez and Harry Kowlaski – he ask them why they are here. They said they were invited to the ballroom, and will eventually join in the line, but first was told to meet up with Benon and Edgar at this specific point in line.
Edgar then check to see what they are genuinely thinking – it becomes obvious that there is no “genuineness” there; they’re just actors fulfilling their role in the script. But the words and emotions they portray reveal that their “roles” are rooting for Benon and Edgar, hoping that they do defeat the King in Yellow and overthrow his tyranny. It is part of the play.
Edgar and Benon bid both Dr. Mark Sanchez and Harry Kowlaski ‘goodbye’, as they think about their next plan of action.
Benon tries to think about what the King in Yellow is. He knows that at midnight, the “unmasking” takes place – where people learn about the true nature of the universe and then gets destroyed.
Edgar: “I can’t believe his appearance is actually his true appearance.”
Benon: “What if we’re all the King in Yellow? That’s the unmasking.”
Edgar: “Even if it’s that…I just need to know that if I bash his skull, has we won.”
Both Edgar and Benon turn towards their companion, the infamous Cylde Baughman.
Edgar: “I don’t know what you’re doing here. What’s the plan?”
Cylde: “When Midnight hits, the King is vulnerable. I will attack it. I need you to help me by attacking it too. Then the King will be slain. I will also have allies that will help me, although you may not like them.”
Edgar: “Alright.” Edgar and Benon is really starting to hate Cylde, even though arguably, they made Cylde to begin with. He’s just unreliable at this time.
Edgar, Benon and Cylde finally makes it to the beginning of the infinite line. The mannequins search for weapons, but do not find Edgar’s hidden weapon stash, allowing Edgar and Benon to sneak weapons into the party proper. The mannequins appear to only find weapons they know already exist, and then move people along.
The Ballroom
Edgar, Benon, and Cylde make it to the ballroom at 11:00 PM. The room is filled to capacity, with an infinite number of masked people dancing to the tune of the beat. The party notices an endless series of divans (couches) and biers (flat frames used to transport coffins).
Next to each divan is an Agent Michael (the intended author of the King in Yellow), waiting for his bottle.
Next to each bier is the royal family of Ythil, squabbling with each other. At the front of the bier is Abigail Wright, the CIO of March Technologies.
Benon asked for a waiter for some of Ythil’s fine cuisine. As he eats, Benon asks the waiter what the biers are for.
The waiter explained the biers are here to transport coffins that will come later. Each coffin will carry the body of a soldier that is fighting to defend the royal family against the False King (who wishes to overthrow the royal family). It’s the same soldier, from different timelines…a person named Billy Johnson, a loyal member of the American Empire (in all of its different iterations).
Benon: “It’s a weird war, but their soldier (singular, plural) had to die. Some person we never met.”
Edgar: “As for Agent Michael. We only bought ONE bottle. So, Cylde, lead the way to OUR Micheal.”
Cylde escorts Edgar and Benon to their correct Michael at the correct divan, while all the other Edgars and Benons (in all the other timelines), wearing the same disguises that they are wearing, marching to the biers, each planning to meet “their” Abigail Wrights.
Edgar: “They’re still on the mission? Weren’t we supposed to kill or capture her and Majestic-12?”
GM: “It’s a possibility.”
Edgar: “We established that we’re the Prime Timeline and the rest of us don’t know what we’re doing. I already know her mission. So let’s talk to Michael first, and see what happens.”
Edgar and Benon finally makes it to a divan of Agent Michael, an tall, gaunt African-American man.
Michael introduces himself as a “loyal Delta Green agent, serving the King. He admits to being on the run, trying to escape cultists who want revenge due to his loyaly to Delta Green. Through gin-soaked breath he talks at great length about art and writing. Michael is out of ideas, he says, and is “on the skids”. “Would you happen to have some inspiration to help me write?”
Silence.
Edgar: “Is this rube really necessary for our plan?”
Cylde says, “You know, now that you’re here…you can do what you need to do…” He grows quiet, and starts looking.
Benon: “Yeah, we need the script. Can you get a script?”
Agent Michael signals for a script, and a waiter comes in, handing the script to the play to Edgar and Benon. Edgar refuses to read the script, but Benon does.
The script details everything that they’ve done, everything that has happened in the past and present. Benon noticed that the script is accurate all the way up to the last page which says, Benon: “Wait, it seems the last pages are missing.” It seems to be writing itself as you are reading it.
Benon: “Oh, so it’s useless. Well, it was worth a shot.”
Edgar, angered at the situation, decided to take Michael’s bottle and smash it over his head. Michael is shocked, stumbled backwards, and suddenly grows aggressive against the party. In nihilistic rage, he strikes…but Edgar quickly subdued Michael. Michael was too wounded by the strike to the head to be able to put up much of a fight. Edgar shoved Michael into one of the divans.
The other Edgars, while talking to their Abigails, noticed Edgar smashing the bottle. They considered the situation carefully, and also chose to smash Michael’s bottles as well. Abigail is shocked. The other Michaels stormed the Edgars, but the Edgars were able to quickly fight off the Michaels.
Cylde, for his part, is trying to run away from both Benon and Edgar. It looks like he’s in panic.
Edgar and Benon chase after Cylde. Eventually Cylde stumble and fell, allowing the Friendlies to catch up and pin him down.
Edgar: I grab hold him if he’s still trying to run. “Did that not fit your plan? Did you not see that coming?”
Clyde: “I thought you would follow orders. Like a good Delta Green Friendly.”
Edgar: “I think we’re beyond that. Where’s the King in Yellow? Let’s finish this.”
Clyde points to a shadowy, masked figure. A person who would hop between the shadows, one area at a time. This is the King in Yellow, the monster who is responsible for everything.
It is now 11:30 PM.
Edgar: I pick Baughman. “Someone out there, in the multiverse, you still have a family. You have to do your job.”
Clyde: He grows silent.
Edgar: “I got a broken bottle.”
Cylde knows that if he resist, Edgar can attack him. In fact, Edgar can shoot him in the back of the neck.
Clyde: “Alright. I’ll do it. Let me get in contact with my…my allies. And then at midnight, we will strike.”
Edgar: “Benon, are you still reading the script?”
Benon: “No, I stopped, because it was being filled it as it is being written. But I am reading it now to see if it is writing down what we just did, because we went off-script.”
The script is now talking about Edgar and Benon trying to escape from the Palace after delivering the bottle to the author. Presumably, they’re running in panic as the world begins to collapse, but luckily, they’re getting close to the escape route.
Benon: “The script is describing something other than what we’re doing.”
Edgar is smug. He still doesn’t want to look at the script though. Edgar wonders about whether he could use the broken bottle to cut the guy’s throat.
It’s now 11:45 PM.
Edgar: “Do you have a plan, Benon?”
Benon: “We got our guns, in this wig. Why not we just shoot him?”
Both Edgar and Benon moves towards the shadowy figure, the King in Yellow. Cylde Baughman then flees to talk to some people.
Edgar: “I’m not going to hold his hands anymore. I know we engineered this hero, but I’m not happy with him, and we proven we can flip the script by ourselves.”
Benon: “Unless the script is describing a different copy of us.”
Edgar: “But that’s the point. We’re doing something else.”
Benon: “But don’t we have to contend with the other people doing other stuff?”
Edgar: “Not unless they’re supposed to stop us.”
There is a crowd that surrounds the King in Yellow. Edgar and Benon decide on a pincer maneuver, Edgar will attack on one side and Benon attacks from the other. They also decide to attack at 11:58 PM, 2 minutes before midnight, in an attempt to get the element of surprise. The King thinks he’s only vulnerable after midnight, so attacking him earlier would surprise him.
At 11:58 PM, the attack happens.
The mannequin-guards notice the assassination attempt and attempt to move to intercept Edgar and Benon. Edgar focuses his efforts on distracting the mannequins away and maneuvering away from them.
Edgar: “Considering that they try to take away guns and weapons away, it’s a big hint that the King can be killed.”
Benon, meanwhile, shoots the King. The King explodes into a spray of ancient rags, leaving nothing other than the Mask behind. Benon, however, get overcome by visions of the terrible, terrible Yellow Sign.
The mask itself is beginning to move away into another shadow.
An infinite number of mannequins are trying to hone onto the positions of Edgar and Benon.
Benon: “Don’t have an infinite number of bullets.”
Edgar: “Infinite number of us though.”
Benon: “The other versions of us are trying to run away. Can we disappear into their mists?”
Edgar: “But it looks like the King in Yellow is gone. Did he leave behind a crown?”
Benon: “No, he just leaving behind the Mask.”
Edgar: “We should go after it.”
Benon: “I was going to go after it.”
Edgar: “Yeah. I’ll hold off the mannequins.”
Benon: “And I’ll shoot the mask as it flies away.”
Edgar: “Or just put it on fire.”
Benon: “No molotov cocktails. I have alcohol though that I can pour onto it…maybe they’ll be useful.”
Edgar: “Alcohol is the same as oil.”
Edgar continues drawing the attention of the infinite mannequins, keeping them off from Benon. Demoralized, the mannequins instead move towards a “softer” target – Cylde Baughman and his allies…which were revealed to the Mi-Go.
Edgar: “He’s right that we would not like his choice in allies.”
Benon is trying to shoot the Mask, and then maybe run towards it. The Mask gets hit by a bullet, paralyzing its motion for a bit. As Benon gets closer to the Mask, he notices that the Mask is recreating the “yellow rags” body again. In the hopes that maybe next time, the rags will succeed….
But it’s too late.
It’s 12:00 AM.
Benon grabs one of his alcohol bottles, smash the bottle onto the mask and the yellow rags, starting an alcoholic ragfire.
Midnight
The play continues, despite the interruption. The royal family mandates that everyone unmask, but the King wears no mask…
Both Edgar and Benon avoids the “unmasking”, looking down onto the floor to avoid getting exposed to the curse of knowledge. Edgar, himself, is moving back because it seems that the mannequins are no longer attacking him (instead focusing their attention on Cylde and the Mi-Go).
But then they hear applause.
Edgar looks to see where it’s coming from.
It’s coming from a long crack in the plaster between the ceiling and the wall. A crack that was always there, but they never noticed it…until now. And then, they see something else…a curtain. That curtain rises to reveal the M-Cell Safehouse, fully furnished. It looks like a set on a stage.
Edgar: “We already knew we were staged.”
Benon: “Is anything happening in it?”
Nothing appears to be happening.
Benon: “What about us?”
Those who were exposed to the truth behind “The King in Yellow” are now changing their clothes. They are becoming “friendly, smiling, black-suited attendants”, ready to prepare for the next performance.
Benon: “I’m assuming Benon’s belongings are in the M-Cell Safehouse. It is our safehouse, so my stuff would be there.”
Benon would walk into the M-Cell Safehouse, pick up his stuff, and goes to the front door, and— “I don’t know where. But I don’t know, but I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Edgar is standing in the ballroom, and they’re full of rags, and he’s looking past the curtains, into the M-Cell Safehouse.
The applause grows louder and the black-suited attendants themselves begins to disappear.
Benon: “You say you wanted to break the script. This is the chance to break the script and not do any of this?”
However, as Benon tries to open the front door, he sees that the exit is locked. Well, it’s not locked in the sense that the doorknob is stuck. It’s locked in the sense that it’s not a door at all…just a mere prop.
Edgar: I will take one of the divan pillars, set the pillar on fire, and chuck it into the safehouse…
Benon gets out – it’s obviously a fake. Edgar, meanwhile, is intent on burning the whole building down.
Edgar then prodded the crack in the plaster, and the ballroom falls away like a house of cards. Cylde is gone now. All the attendants are gone. Abigail is gone. The other Benons and Edgars, if they haven’t escaped, they’re gone too. The royal family is gone. The mask is gone.
The remains of what we thought was “reality” are nothing more than simple plywood backdrops.
In the audience, hundreds of human-sized mari- onettes stare mutely at the stage, strings running up into the dark. Each of them is dressed in the same way as people that you know of, either in your day job, in your family, or in your career as a Delta Green agent. The crowd continues to applause, and the applause just goes higher and higher in pitch.
Edgar: “Theaters historically burn quite nicely.”
Edgar decides to burn the audience. As he throw the fire into the audience, the audience is disturbed. The applause is then suddenly silenced. And then the audience disappear, leaving behind a liquid. A thick puddle of red oil.
The liquid appears to be rising from a small, mechanical hole in the base of each seat.
A thin, aerosol-like, reddish mist creeps up from the audience towards the stage like a faint cloud. The mist appears to be looking for someone, but cannot find it.
Edgar is trying to set fire to the mist. (He’s in destruction mode now.) The mist itself disappears.
Benon goes past the audience and leaves the theater, into the lobby, closing the door behind him. He sees oblivion…or something that looks like oblivion at any rate. Like, a black void, with maybe stars in the distance.
Benon: “It’s space then.” He checks to see if the space can suck him out. It doesn’t.
Edgar sticks a finger in space. He feels no pain nor cold.
The theater itself is burning itself away, leaving oblivion.
Benon: “Do we still have the teleportation device? Let’s try that.”
Edgar: “I want to be confident. I’ll wait until everything is burnt, and we then smash the orb.”
When everything is destroyed, Edgar activates the teleportation device, and is teleported…back to oblivion. The bookstore is destroyed.
Edgar: “I’d feel better if we smash the orb, and nothing happens. Job complete.”
Edgar stick the head out the door, and see what the front of the theater looks like.
It looks like oblivion.
And in a few moments, you too will become oblivion, unless the.
Edgar: “Yeah. I take a running start, before the fire can consume.”
Benon and Edgar runs away, and the fire consumes the theater…running away into oblivion.
But they made it.
They survived the destruction of the multiverse.
Epilogue
Both Benon and Edgar take it upon themselves to create a new universe. Benon agreed to set up the mechanistic rules that govern the universe, and lit the fuse, but doesn’t want to intervene past that. He’s not responsible for what happens next. Then, Benon and Edgar will step into the universe, and experience what happens from the inside.
Benon would maybe live his life once, and whenever he dies, he dies permanently.
Edgar choose to reincarnate, living lots of different amazing lives.
Benon already led a lot of amazing different lives in the multiverse. He’s fine with living only one more life, and that’s it.
And so we come to our end, of sorts.
A play that contains multitudes:
All who died,
All who live, All who yet shall,
Upon this stage with us
Forever.
CURTAIN.
Aftermath
With the game ended, Edgar’s player, Benon’s player, and I discussed about behind-the-scenes secrets.
The city of Ythil is, in fact, the capital of the Yithian socialist fascist democracy, which is mired in a brutal civil war between two factions. This war relies a lot on time travel, and so the Yithians are busy destroying universes in an attempt to defeat one another. Yet, the Yithians are themselves the enslaved subjects of the King in Yellow, forced to serve under him, even as they resent the terms of servitude.
The “red mist” is in fact “corruption” in liquid form. The “red mist” creates the King in Yellow, who then create more humans, who incubate the “corruption” within themselves. The liquid is essentially creating itself. Edgar’s player think that this means the “red mist” is the one who is in actually in charge, and the King in Yellow is merely a machine used to manufacture more “red mist” (using the humans as hosts). When the “red mist” was looking for the King, it was really attempting to repair the machinery it was using to replicate itself.
There is a machine that can be used to extract “corruption” from people (and this machine exists within the Dorchester House). The King in Yellow drinks this liquid corruption, while also trying to generate more liquid corruption.
Abigail Wright’s goal was to corrupt the M-Cell Friendlies by producing a beautiful piece of artwork that would open people’s minds to the manifestations of the “King in Yellow”. She was trying to lure the M-Cell Friendlies into her bunker, so they can be exposed to the artwork and get corrupted. Through blind luck, the M-Cell Friendlies successfully avoided this trap.