We haven't heard from you in about a week and Eli says he knows why. He sent me a very worrying account of how you spent your week- though he's only reporting this second hand what a "colleague" of his told him. Eli's been AWOL a lot longer than a week, with no one to giving any account of what he's been up to, so I don't know whether to believe a word of this e-mail:

Dear Jasper,

They say that those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.
But perhaps it is the other way around.

Once you have seen the path, it is impossible to walk another, no
matter how hard you try.

I showed Ariadne my path, and now it has become hers. She is trapped
in the same pattern I succumbed to four years ago.

News from a colleague at the society: Ariadne was caught last night in
my office. From the looks of it, she has been camping out there for
days, perhaps a week. My colleague says she looks like hell. And the
room was no better. Wrecked.

She had moved all of the furniture aside, throw everything into
corners. A 7 circuit labyrinth was painted on the floor. Apparently
she has literally worn the path to shreds, perhaps having traced the
labyrinth as many as thousands of times over the past week.

Ariadne refused to leave the office. She was forcibly carried out. She
would only say: "I made the wrong choice. The other Ariadnes are
happier."

I knew immediately what has happened. Her silence, her homesickness…

I am convinced that she has become consumed with personal labyrinths.
She is immersing herself in memories from her home world – not to save
this world, but to escape it.

Based on this report from my colleague, I fear Ariadne has become
obsessed with the outlier worlds where she did not accept this
mission, where she continues to live an ordinary life, training as an
athlete for the Multiverse Olympiad, competing from her home world
instead of traveling to ours.

I don't know what we can do. But I thought I would prepare you.

When I walked this path, the result was very bad for the worlds I observed.

We have never understood truly why the ancient Greeks banned the
visions at the omphalos.

Perhaps in the act of seeing, there is risk. Perhaps by knowing the
other worlds, we draw ourselves towards them… an attraction that
heightens the possibility of collapse…

We must prepare ourselves for the worse. Even if we can get Ariadne
back to our mission, it may be too late to untangle ourselves from the
worlds she has drawn us closer to.

Regretfully yours,

Eli Hunt

Friends!

Is she in trouble? Who do we believe? How do we help her?

-jasper