PhantomVoices

PhantomVoices is a Fear Mythos vlog/ARG taking place in the Architect Verse and is also one of stories that established Ravisman into the overall canon. Along with the main YouTube channel, there is also a Twitter account, a blog for the main antagonist(s) and a website made to give players tasks which, when completed, award them with hints regarding the lore.

Summary
The series follows Nathan "Nate" Reyes, a seemingly normal teenager who appears to be recording random bits of footage of himself just for fun. However, things begin to change when a serial killer going by the alias of "Nix" escapes incarceration and takes an interest in Nate, as does a certain faceless entity called "The Maestro" and The Church of Oblivion. In a twisted and "grand" game of chess orchestrated by Nix, Nate is forced to dig deep into the mystery and reveal secrets about his past. Secrets that begin the game for real.

Arc 1
At a laundromat, Nate gets bored and decides to record himself wandering around and goofing off. However, the footage is distorted and broken beyond repair. This continues, but gradually gets worse. After seeing a news report about a convict escaping prison during a fire, he stays at a hotel for a weekend with his classmates. There, he encounters the Nix Killer for the first time and the Maestro. However, he doesn't seem all that surprised by its appearance.

After days of sickness and paranoia (thanks to the newly-emerged blog focused on him), he gets a text message from a weird number. With nothing else to go off of and the need for some sort of answer, he follows the text's instruction. When he gets to Nihil Park, nothing happens. The sender had left long before Nate got there, leaving him a skull mask and a new camera. On it was one video. In it, Nix makes his instructions clear. He wants to play a game of "chess" with Nate. Nate initially declines and decides to go quiet for a bit.

In this time, he appears to have gone to hell and back. The only record he has of his experiences throughout the month or so he was absent is greatly corrupted. He has encountered the Nix Killer, the Maestro, talked to Michael Hale of FallenSeven, been harassed in his sleep, and warped several times. Greatly affected by this, he spends the next few days reading about... something he has not made clear. It is around this time that a pattern is made apparent. In the descriptions of the videos, a message is typed with no spaces. The one writing these messages is none other than Nate himself (or rather, an alternate personality preferring to go by the name "Ryder").

Nate, with no other lead, decides to head off to Nihil Park again, this time with his friend Cassidy. They try to make light of the situation, but things take a turn for the worse after they find a case. The Maestro appears and, in his most aggressive display yet, decides to mess with Nate's mind, forcing him into the Ryder persona. Ryder harasses Cassidy and leaves a video for Nate when he wakes up. With no knowledge of what he had done to Cassidy, he spends the next few days attempting to talk to her, to no avail. She still has his camera.

Ryder eventually takes control again and, after leaving a link to a post in Nix's blog (which, in turn, contains a link to the Church of Oblivion's website), uploads footage against Nate's will. He reveals that Nate has been withholding certain information that could be important in unraveling the mystery; Nate is the grandson of Efren Reyes, the creator of a religion and church focused in worshiping the Maestro. Life gets in the way of the mystery and Nate spends the next video filming himself during his first day of high school.

It's revealed that his parents went missing that day and that no one has noticed (and possible can't). Before this is uploaded, the Church sends out an email to those who finished their latest task. Nate's parents were in the ambulance that Nate had focused on. Nate spends the next few weeks trying to set up a live stream, with the Nix Killer not doing anything either. On the day he has the stream, two videos are uploaded by Ryder.

Nate got his other camera back. The footage on it focuses on two occasions; Cassidy's point of view during their walk in Nihil Park and Nate managing to meet up with Cassidy again. It's revealed to the audience and to Nate what he had done to Cassidy, and that the camera had somehow ended up in the case he keeps the picture of his grandfather in.

During the live stream (which glitches out immensely), Nix takes over several times. He and Nate alternate answering questions. Nate had begun the YouTube channel last year with his best friend and partner Drew Bautista. They went by the aliases Nate Ryder and Drew Blackwell and would make comedy skits, only to stop when Drew went missing. Cassidy is still alive, but not with Nix. The biggest revelation comes when Joseph of The Two Amigos asks Nate where his friend David is. After some hesitation, Nate reveals David's location, only knowing thanks one of Ryder's unseen escapades. Nix takes control one last time and reveals that Nate is the king in this game, acknowledges an entity known as The Trickster, and assures the audience that Drew Bautista will return. He ends it with the message "END ARC 1".

Intermission
During the break between Arc 1 and Arc 2, there was regular correspondence between the Trickster (whose motif is numbers in the place of certain letters) and the Maestro (whose motif is sophisticated grammar) on Twitter. On these posts, the power struggle between the two eldritch abominations is made clear, along with their interest in the boy. During this time, Nate keeps up with Joseph (albeit angrily) and a girl named Su. Nate and the Trickster eventually have a conversation on Twitter, with Nate berating him for not saving Drew like he apparently saved him and the Trickster saying that Drew is "claimed". Major allusions to October 31st are made by the Church and the Trickster. Something happens to Nate on that day and the footage has yet to be uploaded. A new video shows up though, with the description and title stylized in the same way the Trickster types.

Arc 2
After over 2 months of silence from Nate, the Trickster decides to upload the footage from October 31st; the day he was freed from the Boulevard of Shards. It's revealed that while he was away, Nate had been one of the four members of the Control Group program hosted by Capper of The North Woods Project. After a short venting session, he's taken back to Nihil Park. There, he sees the Trickster. The entity harasses Nate and the video ends. This footage is uploaded on December 12th; Efren Reyes' birthday and one day after the anniversary of his death. The Church of Oblivion updates its site to acknowledge this, along with asking active members for Skype usernames. They post a video to Nate's account, calling out the Church of Mischief. Nate begins to reupload videos from the pre-purge era (before Drew went missing). On January 11th (Nate's birthday), the Nix Killer visits him after days of stalking. Nate shifts to his Ryder persona and Ryder and Nix fight, ending in a stalemate between the two.

A couple weeks after Joseph from The Two Amigos was possessed by Chrono, Joseph returns and reports that something happened between him and Nate Reyes. A couple weeks later a video is uploaded to both channels, with a description left by Arcanus. In the video Nate goes to Nihil Park on a lead he got from his friend Drew. At the park he runs into Arcanus who attempts to teleport him to Seachma, The Architect intercepts but Nate is able to escape, though not to Seachma, he instead then finds himself on the Arkansas river in Aliendus, where he runs into The Virus and Arcanus finally gets him to Seachma.

Nate walks through Seachma for a while until he finally finds his grandpa's journal, he grabs the journal and suddenly finds himself in Joseph's backyard, Chrono appears in front of him and punches him to the ground, Nate then chases after him and falls to the ground, The Trickster appears and starts a small fight with The Virus, suddenly the camera teleports away and Chrono is seen writhing in pain as he is separated from Joseph, and Joseph regains control of his body.

Joseph grabs the camera and gets up, suddenly finding himself being chased down by Ryder who corners him and grabs the camera, only to be teleported to fall through a dimensional bleeding hot spot and find himself in Seachma once again, he's then attacked by a David wearing a crow mask and calling himself Corvus, who chops off Nate's hand with a machete.

The video cuts to a clip of Ryder being attacked by The Oblivions Creed who takes the journal and shows Nate finally returning home with a new robotic hand. He later reports on twittter the arm is growing and changing, and will eventually cover his arm.

Next, a video called 'Puppeteer' was uploaded, in which Nate shows off a journal entry of Ron Feeley he pulled out of the Lexicon of Oblivion before it was stolen from him, he is then called by Drew, who warns Nate of an upcoming attack on Sacremento, he stresses out, and he is taken control by the Ryder, who is possessed by The Trickster.

The Trickster explains he is waiting for his physical form to generate, to 'watch out for Ivan', explains Nate's mark, reveals Drew is in fact not marked, and explains why he will not interfere with the cult activities, despite how Nate is valuable to him. He leaves with the words 'Look out for the bomb'.