Meanwhile, Kathmandu finds himself ... elsewhere. The last thing he recalls is that he was whisked away from the rest of the heroes, immediately after transforming into his "weretiger" form and accepting a challenge from the White Tiger Champion - and then, the bewildering experience of being wrenched from there to somewhere else, and encountering something along the way. The best he can manage is to liken it to suddenly finding himself encased in stone - and with his mouth open in a roar, at that. It's an unpleasant experience, to say the very least, and it is too much for him: He passes out.

It is unclear how much time has passed, when he finally regains consciousness. He finds himself sprawled out on a metal floor, reverted to his normal, human floor. As he gets up, he can see that he is standing in what looks like an iron arena, with a raised yin-yang symbol on the floor, surrounded by the trigrams of the bagua. Around the arena, there is a cloudy, vague expanse; as he stands near the edge, he is filled with a sense of dread, and a distinct desire not to stick his hand out into the vagueness to see what will happen. As he looks around, he sees that the White Tiger Champion - reverted to her normal, nearly-human appearance - is collapsed on the other end. She is slowly pulling herself back up to her feet.

There's no clear indication of where the light is coming from that illuminates the arena: his surroundings are devoid of shadows, giving everything a flat and artificial look. There is a faint flickering that reminds him of, say, a fluorescent light fixture that is on its way out; as he focuses on it, he realizes that, every now and then, the vague cloudy expanse outside the arena is replaced - for a brief, fleeting instant - with a scene of something, somewhere else. One moment, it seems the arena is surrounded by solid stone, as if the arena were a pit gouged out of the earth. The next, he sees walls of water that look like they're about to collapse inward. The next, he sees an empty starry expanse, and he feels - for an instant - weightless, as he feels the air pressure dropping ... and then, with the next "flicker", he sees what looks like a modern street scene, except that it's orientation is askew to that of the arena - and he feels a momentary tug of gravity off to one side.

It all contributes to an ill feeling in his stomach, and his attempt to focus on the source of his discomfort unfortunately doesn't do a thing to help him get over it. He feels ill; from the sounds of dry heaving across the arena, it seems that he's not alone in his distress.

When he turns around, he sees the White Tiger Champion recovering, and adopting a combative stance. "Are you ready?" she asks.

"Yes - No," Kathmandu quickly corrects himself. "You don't look so good." (Not that he feels much better, himself.) Taking a chance, he walks around the arena, toward the Champion, careful not to step on the bagua or any other identifiable features, just in case they represent some sort of trap or trigger. The Champion stands, flinching with every "flicker", watching Kathmandu, but when he reaches out to her, she recoils, exclaiming, "Don't touch me!"

Kathmandu asks about what's going on. After a moment's pause and gasping for breath, the Champion responds, "I don't know." She spends some time, gathering her thoughts, and then she starts talking, quickly, in an almost stream-of-consciousness explosion - something about how she is the guardian of the Scroll of the White Tiger, and that this Arena doesn't exist until someone passes through the last Gate who is a valid challenger - one of the "Anointed Ones" - and then the Arena appears, and she appears, and she challenges the adventurer, and if he accepts, she calls forth the Spirit of the White Tiger, and she fights the challenger, and if he wins, then she gives him the scroll, and sends him back, and if he loses, she just sends him back, and no one but the Anointed Ones are supposed to get here, but somehow the Raven got the Scroll, but that wasn't a problem, because if an Anointed One had passed the last Gate, then the Scroll would have returned to her because it wasn't in the possession of someone who had won it, but the Raven had passed it on to an Anointed One without it going through a Challenge, and she couldn't use her powers to teleport there, but she couldn't not go there, so she had to walk, and she can't remember the last time she had to actually walk anywhere, and so when he accepted the Challenge, they were supposed to go the Arena, but the Arena wasn't there, because no one had gone through the Gate, so the Arena was still ... nowhere ... which didn't matter when there wasn't a challenger there, but the challenger can't be nowhere ... so ... where is this?

Kathmandu listens to this and more as she rambles on, talking in circles, trying to make sense of the "rules", and he starts to figure that this is some sort of bug or flaw in the system: A distinct set of events was supposed to be triggered by a normal course of events, with a Player as a catalyst, but things happened out of order, and the system wasn't able to handle it.

While he muses this - half to himself, and half aloud - the Champion comes to a conclusion. "I am to summon one of the Avatars is something like this happens again," she says - but before she does so, she pauses. "Again? But I don't remember this happening before. Why would I think that I'm supposed to summon an Avatar if this happens again?" Kathmandu takes advantage of this opportunity to dissuade her from calling anyone - let alone an "Avatar" - just yet, until they can figure out what is going on, and what might be wrong.

After some time of talking, Kathmandu figures out from the Champion that the "Avatars" are the DungeonWorld equivalent of "Guardians" - that is, the in-game tools through which the game's administrators move through the environment and make changes to it. He learns a little more of the Champion's role: basically, to pop into DungeonWorld when needed, to fight someone who is questing for the Scroll of the White Tiger - or, if the Scroll is already won, to present another challenge to win one of the Seals that can be used with it. Apparently, this is part of some greater quest, wherein four warriors are to visit the four shrines, fighting the four champions, to acquire the four scrolls - and then, once all four are attained, they can face the fifth champion, and compete for the fifth and most powerful scroll.

The Champion is bewildered now - She realizes now that she had a great many rules to follow, but she also realizes that she doesn't feel particularly beholden to them right now. But, somehow, she knows that were she to go back to DungeonWorld (and, right now, she feels that she's "somewhere else"), she would immediately have to follow them again, and quite probably forget everything that has gone on just now. Furthermore, she feels that she recognizes Kathmandu from somewhere.

"Was I traveling in the company of someone else?" he offers. "Perhaps someone I was training, leading along on a quest?"

This seems to spur recognition from the Champion, and then her eyes go wide. "The Grand Master!" She immediately drops to the ground, bowing to him.

Kathmandu is thrown off, but he decides to play along for now. He explains that he had come to test her, and that this is all part of a new challenge to help her to reach a new level of consciousness. He wings it as he goes along, trying to "stay in character" as much as he can manage, but all the same trying to get more information out of her of what she might remember - about him, about herself, about DungeonWorld, or anything for that matter.

He talks with her for a while, playing up the role of being the mysterious mentor monk, and explains his change in attire: He is on a quest of his own, he says, to raise his own level of consciousness, and to find himself. He asks her more questions, and when she simply says that she doesn't know, or she isn't "supposed" to know this or that, or whatever, he encourages her to try harder. One particular question he asks of her is what her name is. She insists that she doesn't have one: She exists solely to be the Champion of the White Tiger, and has no life outside of that role. Kathmandu, observing her change in demeanor, suspects otherwise, and he draws upon his psychology training that he is only now recovering - with the slow recollection of his own memories from his "previous life".

At last, he gets her to come up with a name: Nao. And with this revelation, it's as if he's opened up a whole floodgate. She confesses to having conflicted memories. She remembers at some point, being someone other than herself. She conjures up the Spirit of the White Tiger and becomes one with it, to fight in the challenge, but she remembers Kathmandu being a wisened old man, traveling with a child - a child in an adult's body, but somehow she knew this was a child. The child went on a quest to tame the "Four Heavenly Beasts" - and for this role, Nao was the White Tigress, rather than its Champion, and for a time she traveled with the child - who also gathered the other Heavenly Beasts, on a quest to eventually find the legendary Ki'rin.

But then, after this quest was completed, Nao remembers it all being undone, as if the story was over, and then rewritten. She remembers other instances as well, memories of dying multiple times - but not being "resurrected", just "starting over". She also remembers a life as a human, in some other strange place. Kathmandu seizes on mention of this, and asks Nao to expand upon it.

As she does so, haltingly, repeatedly correcting herself as she confuses details of this life with her existence in DungeonWorld, a new identity reveals itself: She was once Matsuzaki Nao, an orderly at a secret military base, working with the patients and test subjects associated with the Morpheus Project. She describes herself as "unimportant", suggesting that all she did was to "push patients around in wheelchairs", but Kathmandu finds himself remembering more as well - and he's quite confident that any nurse working at that project would have sufficient credentials, capability and responsibility to be doing more than just "pushing patients around in wheelchairs".

She complains of intense headaches, but she presses onward anyway, multiple times nearly swooning as memories rush back to her. She remembers a little boy named Simon, one of those that she had been caring for. He was able to do strange "tricks", and this unnerved her. She had observed him doing such things as moving a penny around on a table by simply focusing on it - and then, more impressive things. The most bewildering of all was when he offered her a flower - one that looked artificial, as if he had made it somehow out of paper. When she touched it, it collapsed into dust, and he laughed: He said not to worry, because he could "make another one".

She remembers Dr. Wray being terribly fascinated with her report on that incident, and that he made a bunch of last-minute changes to the schedule on the very last day that she remembers from that life. There were some important people visiting, from other countries, and there was going to be a demonstration of the possibilities of the Morpheus Project. Kathmandu - no, Dr. Venezuela - was one of the lead demonstrators, who would be in the "virtual environment". Several patients and test subjects were lined up, and Dr. Wray changed the schedule. A young lady by the name of Riley Sinclair, and an older gentleman, Captain Davies, were to be in the system. Dr. Wray added Simon, and also a "high risk" subject, Abigail Pierce.

Then, she remembers the disaster. Alarms were going off. There were strange shadows, whispering voices, ghosts. She saw ghosts of people who shouldn't be dead - some of the people who were supposed to be in the Morpheus System. Fires broke out, lights exploded, and pandemonium ruled. Soldiers were firing at phantoms, and there were all these tentacles grabbing people, and hauling them off into a suffocating blackness. The complex was collapsing around them, and orders were called for everyone to evacuate. She was trying to get the patients out - those who couldn't move on their own - but there were these walls that kept appearing, turning corridors into dead ends - and then, the ghosts, and the tentacles, and the blackness that finally swallowed everyone up. She remembers the voices taunting, promising, threatening, in voices that sounded familiar but unplaceable, speaking as if they could read her thoughts and those of everyone around her, drawing upon their darkest secrets and weaknesses to try to convince them to give up, to give in to the embrace of ... whatever it was.

She drops to the ground, as she comes to the conclusion that she surely died at that moment. She remembers being swallowed up by the darkness, and then being in some whirling void, some place that she supposes might have been Hell. She recalls there being others, but that it seemed that their shapes were being distorted, breaking apart, merging together or dissipating entirely. She doesn't recall actually thinking anything at that point - just acting, trying to do whatever it was she was doing last - trying to "get people out".

Then, she feels as if there was nothingness - and then, she recalls passing through different places, trying to pull herself together, to be someone. She remembers going to a place presided over by someone she knows to be "Aphrodite". She remembers finding herself in a nightmarish dream world, the private fantasy of a very wicked person, of briefly finding herself, and then being crushed and driven to the brink of insanity. And then, she recalls finding another place - and becoming the Champion of the White Tiger, hiding away in this role. The "memories" of the Champion became intermingled with hers, and she had to obey all the "rules" governing that role. She remembers brief, fleeting moments of regaining something of her own consciousness, when the rules would have conflicts or gaps, and she would be required to figure out how to best interpret them.

Apparently, this would be the longest she's had to try to "recover herself" ... and she's not certain whether or not this is a good thing.

Kathmandu spends some time thinking on this, meditating, trying to see if he can recall anything, inspired by her recounting. He remembers the base, some of the people that she's mentioned, and he even thinks that he can place a face to her name - though not any close association. He then tries to explain to her about the current situation - how they are in a "virtual reality", and that they are either "ghosts" of their former selves, or just artificial intelligences patterned after them. He indicates that, whether or not the original Morpheus Incident was intentional, there are those who know what happened - and they actually want to make it happen again. Kathmandu indicates that he's dedicated to seeing to it that this doesn't happen - even if that means calling an end to his new, virtual "life" in the process.

Nao agrees that she wouldn't want anyone else to go through what she did, and if this is all within some sort of computer, then perhaps oblivion wouldn't be such a bad thing, rather than reliving the memories of her death - and possibly something worse.

Kathmandu turns to the issue of what to do about Nao. To the best that he can discern, this arena is somewhere "outside" DungeonWorld, but its connection to the various virtual realities in the Universe system is fluctuating. After talking with Nao, he gets the impression that its exact location may very well be influenced by Nao's awakening consciousness - that if she were to make some sort of decision on what makes the most "sense" for the arena to rest upon, then the matter would be settled, and there it would go. However, he's also certain that if it were to suddenly appear somewhere in DungeonWorld - or anywhere else that "DungeonWorld" rules might prevail - that Nao's "programming" as the Champion of the White Tiger would take over again, and that her consciousness would be suppressed.

Nao is certain that she could send Kathmandu back to DungeonWorld, simply by declaring him as having "failed" or "won" the challenge - but would apparently send her back as well, for her role in announcing the outcome to Kathmandu, awarding him with the Scroll, and/or sending him on his way. So, Kathmandu tries to explore the notion of finding a way to pry her consciousness apart from the "Champion of the White Tiger".

Rather than starting with her as a guinea pig, however, Kathmandu decides to do some meditation exercises, to see if perhaps he can find out some more about himself, and his relationship with the form of "Kathmandu" that he ended up attaching himself to in Superior City. So, he goes into deep meditation, trying to tap into the "memories" of Kathmandu - that is, Kathmandu the video game character, the "alien" from the "Megamon" game. However, when he does so, he is met with the distinct feeling of hitting a mental barrier ... and, after further concentration, he feels that this may well be a barrier that he erected himself, at some point in the past.

So, he goes into a visualization exercise, and he finds himself exploring a house - a location that is both alien and familiar to him, a sort of dream-amalgam of every place that he has ever considered "home" in his normal life, before the Morpheus Incident. Outside the house, he can hear a raging storm, and thunderous peals that sound like a tiger's roar. He explores the house, and tries checking the television or the clock to find out what time it "really is", but apparently he's unable to find such information inside his own mind. He tries the door, but it is locked; he decides against forcing it open. He listens to the winds, and he finds himself being mesmerized by a voice - a voice that seems familiar, yet impossible to place, that seems to be alternately taunting and tempting him, dredging up all his insecurities, all his perceived failures, all his shortcomings, trying to convince him that his former life isn't worth living - or pretending to live - and that he should tear down the barriers he's created, and join with the wind.

It seems that the voice would go on even more, but Kathmandu wrenches himself out of it, as it tries to pull him down into an emotional spiral. Instead, he decides to explore the house, which seems to be decorated with furnishings and knickknacks that are relics of his own memory - things that he doesn't remember clearly since his time in Superior City, but which apparently weren't totally erased from his mind. He pulls open a photo album, and finds a photograph of an airport in India, but he is struck by a feeling that this isn't an actual representation of a real photograph; it's colored by memory, and perhaps something else. He's struck by the feeling that his perception of the photograph changes as he looks at it and scrutinizes the details, mentally challenging them.

At last, he decides that he's had enough frustration with the uncertainties of exploring these relics of his memory - not knowing how much is "really" from his memory, and how much is going to end up being a false "recovered memory" as he tries to mentally fill in the blanks - or, perhaps, the system tries to do it for him. So, he focuses on getting out of this dream ... and bringing something with him: the photo album.

And then, the storm is silent. He opens his eyes, and finds himself back in the arena. The photo album is in his lap, and Nao is asking him, "How did that get there?"

He learns from Nao that he had been sitting there the whole time, but that somehow - when she blinked - the album appeared. It wasn't there, and then it was, but she didn't actually see it appear.

Kathmandu tries an experiment, showing a random page to Nao from the photo album. She reports that she sees strange images - abstract, incomplete, with gaps missing - like someone was trying to draw something from memory, perhaps, and gave up early on. Kathmandu takes note of this, but he's not sure what to make of it. He does observe, however, that Nao seems to be distressed when looking at the album, and she is eager to stop looking at it, complaining of the onset of a terrible headache. (He considers whether he might be able to use this relic to his advantage - perhaps showing it to enemies and giving them headaches?)

At last, Kathmandu tries to lead Nao through some mental exercises. This takes quite a bit of time - though it's unclear exactly how much - but she shows some progress. (And, perhaps, Nao might have picked up a few things while working at the base where the Morpheus Project was held.) Kathmandu urges her to try to "separate" herself from the White Tiger - to "summon" it as a separate entity, not part of herself.

She tries ... and succeeds. The White Tiger Spirit materializes. Nao opens her eyes, and gives a surprised smile, looking to Kathmandu for affirmation that she's succeeded ...

... but then the White Tiger Spirit attacks Kathmandu!

Kathmandu quickly transforms to his weretiger form, weathering the White Tiger Spirit's initial attack ... and then he returns the favor, bludgeoning the beast. He decides to go all out, pushing himself to pound on the White Tiger Spirit again and again, fatiguing himself rather than to let his opponent recover long enough to get in even a single additional blow. The plan works: Even when the White Tiger tries to strike back, it nearly fumbles, thrown off balance by Kathmandu's relentless assault. In a remarkably short battle, the White Tiger Spirit collapses ... and suddenly, Kathmandu is transported away.

Kathmandu finds himself back in the woods near the Clockwork Tower. Nao appears ... but so does the White Tiger Spirit. Oddly, the White Tiger Spirit wrenches its body upward, forced into a "bipedal" stance, even though its body is clearly not suited or balanced for the task. The White Tiger moves its mouth and makes yowling and roaring noises as if it were trying to speak, but it comes out bestial and unintelligible.

Nao translates, "It's ... congratulating you on winning the challenge of the White Tiger, and it's granting you the Scroll of the White Tiger." Kathmandu recalls that he already has the scroll, but then is surprised when it's handed to him by a big clawed paw of the White Tiger - and when he takes it, he observes that this isn't a copy: the original isn't where he put it. Nonetheless, he takes the scroll, and watches in bewilderment as a large white tiger moves about, as if trying to pantomime the motions of a "sexy martial artist" with a big bulky oversized cat body. Nao does her best not to burst out laughing.

After a bit more yowling and further presentation - with shorter translations from Nao - the White Tiger finishes its "end-game speech", and then promptly falls over. Kathmandu is momentarily worried about the tiger, but then it rolls over and adopts its standard "idle pose" - on all fours.

Kathmandu checks to make sure that Nao is still Nao. She is - though she's still bewildered at being in a body that is clearly not her own. (For one thing, she wasn't a "cat-girl" in real life. "I'm sure I would have noticed you at the base if you were," Kathmandu remarks.)

Kathmandu tries encouraging the White Tiger to come along, but it seems to be stuck in its "idle pose". Nao asserts that the White Tiger should be quite capable of taking care of itself, so Kathmandu leads the way to the Clockwork Tower. (After all, from the big pile of debris he can see at the entrance, he assumes that his friends have probably already been this way....)

So, will Kathmandu manage to catch up with his friends as they head into danger at the top of the Clockwork Tower? To find out this and more, check in for the next session of ... Superior City!