[The sensory feed opens and, though it's coming from Thorne's mind, it's Beatrice in the image. She's standing in front of a chalkboard, holding a pointer, and for whatever reason dressed in a facsimile of the Doki Doki no Gakuen uniform - clearly this is going to be educational. Or Beatrice thinks it's going to be - she looks far too excited about this.]

Welcome, Travelers! Many of you have met me, but for those who haven't, I am Beatrice the Golden, otherwise known as the Endless Witch. In an effort to advance the cause of knowledge among us, I've decided to do a breakdown on the metaphysics of our current situation. Use the knowledge to fight the Trumps, use the knowledge to gain favor with the Trumps, ignore it, or find something more creative to do.

It really doesn't matter to me, but I do believe my perspective is of interest. As I've told some of you...I have played a game very similar to this before, with myself in the position the Trumps hold now.

[She gestures to the chalkboard, using her S. Tech abilities to cover it with a sketch of a tiny, chibi version of herself playing chess with a tiny, chibi version of a guy in a suit with shounen action hero hair. ...The latter appears to be holding his head in despair.]

This was, of course, a private matter between myself and certain acquaintances of mine (before certain parties decided to surpass their contractually stipulated involvement), but the principle remained the same: a Liminal Space for players to reside in, and specially prepared worlds and scenarios for them to Investigate. My rules and goals were clearly not the Trumps' rules and goals, but I believe I have some perspective on how this place operates.



But first, we need to talk about parallel universes!

[With an overly dramatic gesture from Beatrice, the scene fills with a swarm of golden butterflies, which flutter off to reveal Beatrice standing in front of the same chalkboard, covered in tiny, tiny white dots of chalk. The air is also full of floating dust motes, also apparently chalk, albeit more glittery. Somehow, none of it's on her or her uniform.]

There are more possible universes than you can possibly imagine. Every choice, every random chance, every decision in the universe has created new universes every picosecond since the beginning of time, if time even has a beginning. All of these possibilities make up what humans call the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Theory, and what Witches call the "Sea of Fragments" (or kakera for you native Japanese speakers out there - I'm told there's a subtle difference in meaning). Anyway, the sea is trillions upon trillions upon trillions of Fragments of Possibility.

[She gestures with a hand, and the air itself takes on a golden color, highlighting the gaps where there are no motes representing universes.]

You will notice, however, there is space between these Fragments - the sea itself, 'existence' that does not exist in any possible Fragment, but between them. In my game, I called it Purgatorio - Travelers call it Liminal Space.

Which is convenient because apparently you went to a Fragment of an entirely different Purgatory, but never mind.

This Space exists in, above, around, and between the Fragments of Possibility, and yet because it's not within them, it could be argued to either not exist at all, or exist in an entirely different state. Let me give you another way of looking at it.

[Beatrice coughs, and the chalk and chalk dust disappear, the board illustration now replaced with a cutesy sketch of a cat inside a thick white box.]



You all know this one, right? Place a cat inside an impenetrable box with something that has a 50% chance of killing it. Poison, radiation, very small dog, whatever. Then you open the box. In one possible Fragment, the cat survives, and in the other, the cat is dead.

However...while it's inside the box, unobserved, it is outside the Fragments of Possibility, in what physicists call a Quantum Superstate and what Witches and most humans call "magic" - it both exists and does not exist at the same time, because its state is unknown, but perfectly estimable. Its existence is Liminal.

[Beatrice pretends to pause for applause, and then just gives herself some with S. tech and grins.]



And that, I believe, is the state of this space we are in now. It exists and does not exist, it is everywhere and nowhere, like our unfortunate cat. Have you ever noticed that nothing here persists unless you're observing it, fixing it in a particular state? Or unless you pour your heart and soul and memory into it, guaranteeing it's being thought of even if it isn't observed with the eye? That's why. We and everything here are in a Liminal Superstate - we're all the mystery cat.

[She snaps her fingers, and the chalkboard changes one more time, the single cat illustration being replaced by a grid of two cats by four cats, all contained within the solid white box.]



There is one more topic I'd like to cover today. Different beings in the Sea of Fragments hold a different number of worlds they can manipulate. My territory was, I'm not ashamed to say, comparatively small. Before I came here, the number of fully-formed worlds within it could be counted on two hands.

[She winds up and pitches a cluster of golden butterflies at the chalkboard, which is then filled corner to corner with an array of seventeen by thirty-three cats that extends in pseudo-3D far beyond what the eye can see on the board.]

Another meddlesome witch manipulated and investigated over two and a half million before she got lazy and/or bored.

[The chalk all erases itself, and the contents of the box are replaced by symbols representing the last four worlds the Travelers visited - rainbow-colored chalk circles around a dragon, a bat fighting a wolf, chibi illustrations of Beatrice and Minako angrily sparkling at each other, and a rocket ship with butterfly wings.]



The question I have right now is this: what are the boundaries of the Trumps' game? How many worlds are they using as game boards? I think this is useful information whether you oppose them or want to play cooperatively, because it tells us the shape of the playing field, whether we're trying to get off of it or just get to the other side and go from pawns to queens.

Anyway, that's all for now, credit to my lovely camerawoman Thorne for not interrupting, I'm off for tea. You know how to reach me.

[She grins, which generates one more S. Tech sparkle, and motions for Thorne to end the communication. She can take questions in her own head.]