DD-SWTC01 (Sep 27, 2021)

DD-SWTC01 DISCLAIMER: THIS RECEIPT HAS BEEN UNLOCKED BY DIVISION TANGO (UPDATES 1-10).

Puzzle

DINER DINER
8 CHARACTERS 1 WORD
“You’re on your own.”

Puzzle (Update 1-10): “A slippery tail sometimes tips their hand... Or lack thereof.”

Clue

Hover over the clues if you require!
Clue 1: I suggest a quick read of Killers Come Round, Sixth edition.
Clue 2: For an Employee No. 422 receipt, the first part is surprisingly less typo'd.
Clue 3: Well, not all of it, but still.

Answer and Explanation

Answer: Trappola
Explanation: The first paragraph of CD-KCR06 has less typos than you would expect from an Employee No. 422 receipt. The typos spell out trappola.

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⚠️BEWARE: THIS IS DECLASSIFIED INFORMATION. WARY EYES ONLY. ENTER AT OWN RISK.⚠️

Summary of Receipt

Summary

Transcript

[BRANCH] PALM BEACH
[SERVER] MANAGER NO. 5
[DATE] 9/27/21
[INDEX ID] SWTC01
[SECURITY] AND DINER DINER

Right, well... bloody hell. I can’t believe she’s dead. Well, “functionally” dead. I can’t believe me and Nick spent nine months searching the Flipside, Otherside, Underside, Topside, and bloody Limbo just for her and her new boy toy to commit Bird-Assisted suicide. Just to be clear, I’m not mad at Seth. I don’t even know if I’m mad at Nikki. I get it. I bloody well get it. Things are in motion that are bigger than us. Bigger than what we used to be. I think what stings the most was the lack of hesitation from her. Stuck in Limbo for the better part of nine months, and instead of going home, she jumps into an entirely different circle of hell, literally and metaphorically. Then, THEN, bloody Jean. BLOODY BLOOMING ARSEHOLE JEAN. “Right, mate, well I’m off too.”

Jean. Can’t get around it much longer, yeah? He’s sodded off to work with Bird and Belphie. You know, I’m not mad at Seth, or Nikki, or even Jean. Bird. I’m mad at Bird. He doesn’t, no He couldn’t understand how we feel about all this. He feels now that He’s back in charge He can move us around like pieces on a chessboard. Problem with chess is you have to sacrifice your pawns to make advances. Anyway, on the surface, Jenni is the new owner, yeah? Makes sense. She should be. But if we’re going by ownership over the Mantle, say hello to your new leader. I’m sitting with three-eighths of the full thing. Jenni, Nick, Jackie, Jules, and Joy all have an eighth themselves, and Julia has whatever it is she has. The negative eight? Imaginary eight? I could never keep track of that lot.

So how did I end up with the biggest share? Well, as you all know, Jean’s gone off to play Otherman again. And being the Otherman doesn’t really require the Mantle, choice? Hell, I don’t know if he could have kept it with him if he wanted to. That’s all above my head anyway. The thing is, I drink, or drank, to keep the Wicked at bay. Every time I used my magic, he would seep deeper into my thoughts. Now it’s fun to punish my liver on a daily basis when I’m in a good mood, but with everything that’s happened, well, the bottle will do more damage to me than the Wicked. That, however, puts me in a rather precarious position where I can no longer use my magic at risk of becoming the next Miss. Masoch. Unless. Unless I have the Mantle to protect me. And Jean, Jean he knew this. So he slipped me his totem, a literal Ace. Can it protect me? Can they protect me? Will they? Well, that’s the fun of it, yeah? No way of knowing ‘til we try it out. Now my previous one-twenty-fourth of the Mantle wasn’t going to cut it, clearly, but now that I hold three-eights... well, maybe that can keep the Wicked out. For the time being, of course. It’s like a bandaid on a bone-deep cut. Eventually, I’ll need stitches before it festers, but we’ll work that out later.

Now I am all for just unleashing my full powers and seeing if the Mantle of Eight can handle the encroaching blight, but I feel like I should take SOME precaution, yeah? Problem with the Mantle is it’s not something that’s too easy to test with. It’s all or nothing, and it’s not as tangible as I’d like. I think the best course of action would be to have Joy or Rach, or Jenny use their "intuition" to see if they can’t tap into "it" to get an answer. Jean didn’t just toss me his totem and call it a day. He did clue me in a bit to how it all works. And, I will say, having three-eights does lend a bit more insight than I’ve ever previously had.

Fair is foul, and foul is fair, after all.