You're probably woken up by the explosion first. A loud, deafening boom comes from behind the walls of the residential district. When you look outside your window towards the darker, more secretive area of the city, you might see the structure around it... crumbling, the land falling in on itself slowly but surely. That might be what wakes you up first. If it doesn't, you may be awoken instead by the sudden jerking feeling behind your navel pulling you from where you are to somewhere... else.
It's dark. The first thing you notice is that it's dark -- and then come the scrabbling sounds of creatures in the dark, like metal being dragged across metal, a chilling, sharp sound. The first thing that becomes clear, as your vision adjusts, is that you're on a rickety pathway, metal and rusting and frail, above what appears to be yawning blackness. Far, far below, there's the faint sound of rushing water, a ways away.
The second thing that becomes clear is that you are very much not alone. Something is out there with you, and from the screeching metallic noises that come ever closer, it seems to be stalking you.
Thankfully, you're not alone -- right?  ...
...........
................
:)
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PHASE I [ ??? ] It’s drafty here. You’re below ground, that’s for certain from the echoes of the wind in the darkness. If you continue on forwards along the rickety, metal railing that serves as a walkway, the skittering noises of creatures in the dark follow -- but they don’t appear.
It seems everyone has been dumped along this pathway at random; you may be with friends, with enemies or with someone you’ve never met before, but either way, it soon becomes clear. There are only two ways to go along this path: up or down.
If you choose to take the path that follows a gradual slope down, the sounds of water lapping against a surface increase bit by bit, the air growing heavier and danker, until finally, the metallic platform gives way very suddenly (watch your step!) to a muddy bank. Down here, everything is darker, and not far away there’s the water. It’s cold and frigid and there are unfriendly creatures that await if you choose to delve into it. However, if you brave those creatures, and dive deeply enough, there is a mask. It rests half-buried by silt and rocks, but it’s there, and can be found by any intrepid explorers.
Somehow, it feels a little familiar.
And if you carry on in the cave system underground, eventually you will come across what appears to be an altar. There is blood on it -- not fresh, but not more than a month old -- and pieces of trinkets. Old bits of cloth, locks of hair, and some of them may even be familiar. Any dropped character who has a reasonably large amount of spiritual or magical power may have left scraps, such as pieces of clothing, trinkets, hair, or the sort behind at the altar.
Maybe that's why they weren't in the Nexus Code.
PHASE II [ ??? ] If you go up, you will eventually make your way above ground. It takes some time, and some luck -- you’ll have to avoid rusty railing and pathways, the path crumbling under you and that creeping sensation that something is following and watching you -- and then you’ll suddenly be in fresh air.
Well. It’s not so fresh, really.
The landscape is broken down and crumbled. It may have once been part of the city of Cerealia, but now it is in utter disrepair and decay. Buildings have crumbled, and debris is everywhere. There are signs of the same level of technology that Cerealia has -- but it is all broken down and utterly inaccessible.
And you’re not alone.
It seems the technology and metal and broken down destruction has gained sentience over its time sitting alone, waiting. And it is not happy to be disturbed. The creatures are made of pieces of everything around them, and when cut down, they’ll just slowly rebuild themselves from the debris.
It might be time to run.
They aren't happy about being disturbed, and you're in their way.
PHASE III [ ??? ] Above ground, there are a lot of broken down buildings.
Some can’t be accessed at all; some are too broken, too reduced to rubble. For those looking for shelter, they'll be able to find buildings where the doors can be forced open and they can camp out on the inside to various degrees of stability. Though the ceiling may cave in or the floor fall out from under you at a moment's notice, it's better than being out there. Be careful, because none of the architecture here can be trusted anymore.
And other buildings... are even less trustworthy than that.
There is a series of buildings in the midst of the wasteland, somehow still standing. They stand there silently, towering over the rest of the rubble in their two-story glory, and if the doors are forced open, it soon becomes clear that the building itself is full of mirrors.
Once, the mirrors had perhaps covered the walls and ceiling. Once, this building might have been akin to something of a ballet studio, somewhere to express yourself creatively. But now the mirrors are shattered and broken into pieces and the building lacks the joy it might have once held. Shards of mirror cover the floor, some big, some not so big, but they still hang from the walls as well and everywhere you look, you can see yourself.
And then, the reflection changes. From one blink to the next, you see a memory playing in the mirrors. Your memory. You’ll see a glimpse of one of your most traumatic or life-changing moments, broken up but clear in the shards. Blink and look away, and it’s gone, only to show up again in the next mirror a few moments later. Surely it’s just a trick of the light, right?
Except if someone else is with you, they’ll see it too -- and you might end up seeing a bit of their own past as well. Hope you're fond of sharing.
PHASE IV [ ??? ] If you survive the monsters, the crumbling landscape and the untrustworthy buildings, you may eventually find a terminal. It is buried deep among the rubble. One turn around a corner, one stumble into a hole, and you will find it. It sits there, out in the middle of nowhere; the building in which it used to be housed is apparently long gone, reduced to nothing but rubble.
And if you turn it on, there is a brief message.
Transmission Broadcasting.
Transmission Connected.
And then, there is a face.
BONUS [ ??? ] For those who have been wearing their masks a little too much, they might also start to notice that there are some strange effects attached, which worsen the more they’ve been wearing said masks. How badly they worsen is up to your discretion.
➝ Broken Mask: An intense feeling of paranoia, focused on whoever your character is with. They might also begin to remember fabricated memories of being betrayed by those people.
➝ Barcode Mask: Everything will begin to have value to them. There will be whispers in the back of their mind of the worth of their friends, the worth of a monster, the worth of everything around them. An intense need to own and consume as much as possible and as quickly as possible.
➝ Dripping Blood Mask: An intense lack of self-worth, a hollow feeling and thoughts of being weak and empty. Feeling as disposable as possible and an intense listless along with it.
➝ :( Mask: A need to prove yourself, to show everyone how strong you are as quickly as possible. You can do things, you can be of worth to everyone around you. Why won't they see that? Why?
➝ Ivy Mask: A choking sort of terror from all things metal and technology based, and a need to lash out against it. An intense distrust for anything that they feel is against the laws of nature.
➝ Grey Mask: More personable than normal, more emotional, more empathetic. An intense feeling of kindness and gratitude to those around you and a renewed love of life.
➝ Feather Mask: A dulled, lack of emotion. A detached feeling to everything around you. A sort of bland curiosity towards things without any empathetic reaction.
➝ Bloody Fingerprints Mask: They'll feel absolutely fine. No change.
The effects of the broken mask can stack on top of the others, if they chose to break their mask after the other effects began to appear. No other effects can be stacked, as no other changes can be stacked.
PENALTY [ ??? ] For characters who die while in the dark parts of the city, things will get... a little strange. They will die as normal, but they will wake up almost immediately after their death -- in the Nexus Code. They will have a few surreal moments to be there, to see their friends who have left Cerealia hanging lifelessly from odd, glimmering strands (though there are some faces, of course, that are missing, anyone who was spiritual, or magical, seems strangely absent) and then --
They’re back to being dead.
When characters revive in Cerealia, anywhere from one IC day to three or four IC days later, they will find that things are… not quite right with their code. They’re glitching, for a lack of a better word. Sometimes, their fingers will phase right through an object, their own limbs registering as cold and lifeless. Sometimes, they will see a face watching them -- but when they turn around to try to see who it is, the face will be gone.
These effects will last an IC week, before slowly things go back to normal.
That was strange.
[ Remember to apply proper warnings on threads with sensitive or inappropriate material and do let a mod know if your thread careens off into maiming or canoodling so we can lock the log. ] |
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iii
The mirrors facing Kousetsu show something that is similar as well. The death of a man he held very dear to him. Itebeoka lays unresponsive beneath a white sheet, his body placed before a gorgeous temple, but the mood and atmosphere is heavy at best. His concern right now is not directed at his own memories being shown however. ]
Tsurumaru-san...they are not really here. Please step away before you cause more harm to yourself.
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but it slowly breaks away from the mirror and towards kousetsu's face instead, as if trying to grip a hold onto what reality is, when the past is right there and very imminent, and how can it not be real?
yet, there's something pale about his expression, as he fails to do just that — to grasp the present. ]
What do you mean...? Kousetsu, let me go‐ I can't let them all die, this time—
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I will stay here, with you, so that you are not alone again. They are...gone Tsurumaru-san, they are not real. It is just a trick of these mirrors.
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if he can't save them, he wants them to look upon him again — and he wants to be with them, knowing full well what it means for him to make that wish. (in retrospect, dying is hard, for tsurumaru. as cruel as it sounds, it'd been easy for, say, yagen and kashuu, but death always eludes his grasp.) ]
Even if it's not real...
Is it wrong for me to still want to go to them, anyway?
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They were your family in a sense. It is...not wrong to wish for them to have a peaceful passing. You, as well as the others, all deserve peaceful lives now and then as well.
[ A swords they deserved a peaceful end too, many of which never occurred for those who wanted and needed it. And what was left was...a sad and painful existence. In a way these bodies were a curse for them. ]
It is not fair...to go through this. But you are strong Tsurumaru-san, I believe that you can overcome this.
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But, did I get one? [ — a peaceful life, he means. his voice shakes, indignantly; and soon, his entire frame shakes with him. ]
Why did it have to be me? Why did these things have to happen to me? Why couldn't I be like Urashima, or like you?
And at the end of the day, we're just swords. [ his breath catches in his throat then, for a moment. ] Does our suffering even matter?
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No you did not. As swords we will never have peaceful lives unless there is no more fighting or sorrow in this world or any other. [ Even here they were brought in to fight as if some cruel joke. It would be a lie if he said he knew the reason for the other's suffering but he is no seer or oracle. ]
I...do not know why it happened the way it did for you, and for the others who have suffered greatly. Our lives were not our own to take control of. But here it is different. Here our suffering does matter. To Haru and to others. We are...not just swords here, Tsurumaru-san. We have a...choice to not be just swords. Tenka-san and Sousei-san taught me that by treating me as if I were their family.
[ They didn't see him just as an object, a sword with no real purpose, because a sword that was against fighting was useless and he knew that. He suspected the others knew as well and he felt all the more powerless sometimes when he thought on it. ]
Haru-san cares as well and I'm sure if he saw you like this...it would hurt him too. Here we can have a peaceful life. [ And he intends to try and maintain that here for as long as he's able. ] If you wish to obtain it...here we can.
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but — haru this, haru that. hearing his name repeated fills him with some kind of rage, and he suddenly turns on kousetsu, eyes narrowed. ]
I don't care about what Haru cares or doesn't care about. The rest of you act as if he's some god — fawning over him, looking after him, getting him gifts and wanting his attention all the time. Has it never occurred to any of you, to ask why you're here in the first place? He tells us that we're here — or there, back at the Citadel, I guess — to fight against enemies that want to change history, or something like that, but who said so? Where's his official certificate, or whatever?
[ tsurumaru doesn't go so far as to display his beliefs in public — he'll ask haru for money, pine for red stickers, and endlessly surprise him, but when it comes down to things, he doesn't trust haru. and he knows that haru knows, but his distrust is deep-set and centuries old, and he doubts that it can be done away with, no matter how hard haru tries. ]
If he wanted to, he could sell all of us. Do you know how much money we'd all bring in? What if he's just been tricking us, all along? Humans are inherently cruel, Kousetsu, and I'm sure that Haru is no different.
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[ His frown and sorrow is evident as he moves a bit closer towards the other. He wants to ask why he bothered staying by Haru's side if his feelings were true, but he doesn't. ]
I do not believe all humans are inherently evil. They start of as a blank slate, untouched by the world around them. Through that they learn of good and evil, and I do not believe Haru-san is one of those humans.
no subject
I don’t know. But as swords, we don’t ever have the freedom to choose why we fight in the first place, anyway.
[ he appreciates the gesture, though — that someone as rational and peaceful as kousetsu is here for him, and that in itself is comforting. tsurumaru does have a thought to add, though, and maybe it just so happens to be Honest Philosophy Hour... ]
That means… that all of the good people will be taken advantage of, by the evil people. And that with time, all humans will slowly become more evil than they were before.
no subject