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EVENT

Reverted
The city of Recollé...have you looked beyond the city lately? It may be time to do so.

I.

The good news, perhaps, is that everyone is back in their original bodies. The last few weeks may have been trying and embarrassing for several of you, but never fear! You're all in this together.

The nice thing about returning to your original body is that everything else seems to disappear along with the unintentional swapping. Your dreams on the evening of the 16th and the 17th are unoccupied and you're blissfully alone. Hallucinations fade away and the city almost feels brighter and cleaner. The messy paint job from May and June slowly flakes off to reveal a sparkling almost-new landscape below. All buildings, landmarks, flora and fauna are back to their original colors. The sky, however, is still painted a strange wash of colors and symbols.

The other nice thing about returning to your original body is that it's much easier to feel the sudden, sharp pain on your palm at midnight on the 18th, a needling high-pressure pain that lasts for all of 30 seconds. Upon looking at your hand, however, you'll notice something new.

In bright red font there's a new marking that reads: 13 Days:23:59:59.

58. 57. 56...

The timer steadily counts down, each second synced with each beat of your heart. As the days pass by the timer will slowly shift from the red to a dark, ominous purple. The glow of the mark becomes harder to ignore, and there doesn't seem to be a way to remove it. Good luck with that.

II.

The Retrospec app doesn't seem to be much better. The scrambled messages and posting errors seem to have stopped and users are no longer receiving messages and pictures about themselves.

In fact, the app seems to be quiet for a while.

As users continue to use the app they will find that any post, comment or message that they send via the app will be tagged with a different ID. Instead of their name, all messages will be from Alpha##### or Beta#####. The string of numbers will be unique for each user and cannot be changed at any time. Individual mailboxes will be attached to your name, but the Alpha/Beta ID has made its way there, too.

Over the course of the rest of the month, Alphas (those who have had the app for at least a year from August 2017) will find that messages to other Alphas are sent more easily than to Betas (those who have had the app for less than a year from August 2017) and vice versa. Messages to anyone from the opposite "faction" may drop out half-way or appear blank entirely. It might be wise to find a better mode of communication in the meantime.

III.
Even if you're alone in your dreams, you're not alone in the waking world. No one is free from the timer on their palm, though they may come to find that it impacts some users more than others.

Some users will experience a steady pulsating in their hand as the timer counts backwards, each second ticking by. Standing still just long enough will send the pulse out of their hands and through the rest of their body, over their arms and through their feet straight into the ground.

The earth begins to shake under these unlucky users, little quakes and trembles that spread out and seek out anyone else nearby. Whether you know this person or not, whether you're alone or several of you are impacted by this earthquake, the ground beneath you splits open and you're pulled straight down into the crevice, falling aimlessly. Instead of finding your own life flashing before your eyes, you'll find yourself witnessing events, faces, and memories that are important to the user the pulses came from.

On the outside of things, the user will promptly collapse into a coma-like state no matter where they're at. Inside their mind, however, a scene begins to set itself to welcome you as you land. It isn't a memory and it isn't a hallucination. It's a construct of someone else's innerworkings that have trapped you and blocked you in.

As the haze around you dissipates, the puzzle you received earlier this month floats in front of you. Whether you have finished building it or not it is now fully completed and all of the words have faded except for "Gordian Knot."

Your cell phones will not work in these dreamscapes, and even Retrospec seems to be disconnected. It's up to you to venture further into someone else's mind and help them untangle whatever mystery is hidden within themselves.

IV.
So about that timer. As time begins to run out, more and more people begin to experience dream dives and encounter the knots of others that they must fix. Even inside the dreamscape, the timer glows just as brightly as it had out in the real world and it continues counting down.

At least it gives you a sense of time and just how many minutes, hours, or days you've been stuck inside someone's subconscious. You might even realize that the timer is directly tied to just how much time you have to unravel the knots of your friends, loved ones, and strangers.

Easy, right? Take caution, citizens. The monsters and demons lurking in the corners of someone else's psyche can manifest to something quite powerful. You will not wake up and be booted out of someone's dream if you are attacked, but your physical body and mind will shut down and remain unconscious for one week.

Be careful how you approach these knots, however! Should you change any part of them too much, the host will find themselves rejecting this new information. Too great of a change will result in the loss of an important memory to them and no way to recover it inside the dive.

Even with these possible losses divers are responsible for fixing what's gone wrong and relieving the knot wound tightly in the host's mind. Venture forward, explore, and break it apart to awaken then. You will be greatly rewarded for your effort.

Failure to break the knot and save the host from this comatose state will result in all parties suffering a loss. At first it may not be obvious, but over time it will be clear an important memory or item has left your possession.

Is it just limited to dives though? Some users will feel that even with successful diving they don't quite feel like themselves. It seems as though there's some further self-evaluation they must meet in order to fully recover who they are...or were, as it may be.

Tick-tock, Retrospecters. Mind the time.

BONUS.
Ever since he moved in back in February, the lights have always been on in Zee's office and home at the top of the Towers. Office hours are whenever he feels like making them and he's usually reachable by phone, email, or app.

However, beginning on the 18th, messages to his inbox begin to go unanswered. Checking the inbox itself will reveal a change as well.

Delta#02018329 is no longer receiving messages.

On the 19th, the lights go off permanently. Beginning on the 20th, anyone who ventures to his office will find the building empty and locked, no sign of Zee at all. Reaching out to him receives a bounce-back error message.

Any previous correspondences with him will remain, though his name has been replaced with his Delta ID.

It's hard to say what's happened, but after some time, all users will finally receive a message from Delta#68422.

Stop him.

No other messages will be sent or received from this account.

Welcome to

recolle's August event, part 2!

As notated in the plotting post, the dreamdives are now live! Players are in charge of creating their own unique dive experiences for characters to explore and play through. These can be as harmless or as dangerous as you'd like. However, please be sure to let us know here if your character will be failing a dive and what memory/item they will be losing!

For Prompt II, characters IDs will be comprised of the following: The date your character first appeared on Retrospec (so in Zee's case, that was 02/01/18) and the last four digits of your character's IC inbox as found in the HTML (in Zee's case, 8329.) These IDs will be more relevant in September, but for ease of playing/making sure no one ICly overlaps please use these numbers!

Friendly reminder that if your character will be keeping their new AUs, please reply to this comment on the OOC plot post! As per Prompt IV, characters who are failing to recover their original AUs will begin to notice something is off and will not be able to accomplish what is needed to regain their original AUs. What this is is up to you!

As per the plotting post, threading out successful dream dives will earn you a free memory! Qualifying threads must be at least five comments from you and can be from you either hosting a dive or participating in one. Please note that failed dives will not be eligible for freebies.

Any questions you have regarding this event may be directed to the mod comment here. Be sure to review the mods' question thread on the plotting post for important information as well!

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I'm afraid... your attempts at elegance are flawed. -Always the critic, but he had little else to say once he found the summit of his climb, seeing the lord of the domain observing yet more 'artwork', yet more elegance marred by detritus and ruin. He held his sword already drawn, without much concern as to whether or not he'd be seen as a threat. Really, he was absolutely certain he would be, regardless, being an outsider, a piece that did not match the aesthetic around him.

But something to the notion of it, of the discarded 'objects' that were not more but junk around him, that seemed to penetrate deep past his flesh, seeping into the very core of him. It was... offensive. Deeply so. And the grip on his sword tightened as a result.-

Shall I cut the knot now? Or shall we cut each other, first?

[the Knot. it flickered to life as its name was spoken, becoming an open data terminal with confusingly-named folders and directories and—none of it was A2's expertise. but she was here to protect it. her purpose was to kill, and if this person wanted to get at the Knot, then she knew what she had to do.]

[without a word, her body turned around on its heel, her right hand extending. she didn't plan to give him a chance to look closely enough at it to realize that there was no seam where hand met hilt. all she did was rush forward and swing at him, diagonally down from the right. she was android, she was mechanical, she was... better than humanity. this would be simple. she would kill him and the Knot would be safe. that was what she was built for, after all.]

-Oh how he so intimately understood that purpose, and already he could feel a serge of vitality rush through him that no poem or painting could ever bring him as steel clashed with steel, his face taking on a smile unlike any he could normally give outside of this. very specific moment.

The purpose of all blades... is to cut.

And he would live up to that purpose here and now, pushing away her blade with a parry, using well more strength than any normal human should have.-

[if he thought it would be that easy, if protected static void kasenKaneda() suspected that A2 wouldn't fight back elegantly or otherwise, then he was going to be in for a surprise. was this the rematch he had expected? the Knot's screen flickered behind A2 as the thought passed through her and into the terminal, and on the screen, the file tree expanded automatically to pull up the memory of that fight. in Bosuma. together, with private abstract main().]

[A2 could cut through metal like it had been soaked in gallium. one parry would not throw her off. the sword at the end of her arm swung down again after not enough time to reasonably recover but here it was coming anyway, the electric charge fully restored and ready to discharge again, and her feet dug into the perfectly smooth surface of the battlefield. behind her heels, not that she noticed, a bed of beige flowers, angular and pixelated but marked as those in Bosuma, sprouted from the battlefield.]

-It was thrilling, seeing the true extent of this person's... no, this *tool's* ability. A strange feeling of kindredness flowed through him as Kasen himself displayed ability well beyond that of a human, his sword withstanding the charged blade of his opponent in a high guard, shifting to push her blade aside and try to create another opening.

It was night and day, what he'd seen that time in Bosuma verses now. And he couldn't be happier, by the smile on his face.-

[were this Anna, she would be thrilled to see him smiling like this. she would be glad that she was finally giving him the kind of fight he wanted while more constructs of flowers and trees and vegetation built themselves up around the two combatants. this was what kasenKaneda() had been asking for—in that bizarre dream, in real life, in some of main()'s most recent memories.]

[she tried holding her blade fast against his push, but the blade discharged along the metal and the sparks filled her vision with snow for just a moment and she felt her arms moving in the direction her enemy wanted them to go. dangerous. she was open, she realized with a scowl, and if he was as good as she then she wouldn't be able to move fast enough to guard herself again.]

-Despite everything that normally would hold it at bay, particularly knowing that despite all differences involved, this was still essentially Anna, Kasen's killer instinct, his driving brutality, was unable to be contained. The normal Kasen would have held back, unable go in for a killing blow.

But this was less the Kasen in her memory banks. This was Kasen *Kanesada*. And he was a much different creature...-

Present your neck! -He shouted, capitalizing on the drop of her guard with a thrust towards the neck in question.-

Go to hell!

[she managed to shout right back at him as the sword came in for her throat and the point dug into her artificial skin. it wasn't going to kill her, because main() had no idea what actually could, but it got her to stop attacking and actually feel the pressure of something up against her voice synthesizer. he had her, at least for the moment, and she did care a little about self-preservation; if she died, then she would fail her mission, and this seemed like the fastest way to die.]

Get the fuck out of here.

-While that certainly would have been a killing blow on any ordinary human, it clearly didn't quite manage the trick with Anna. Kasen pulled his blade free, hopping back and raising himself back into a defensive position.

He had memories of facing enemies well beyond human, so he wasn't that shocked to see her surviving his thrust. It just meant he'd need to go in for more. All the better, really.-

[with the blade out of her neck, she felt what she had to assume was oil dripping from the wound, and the way it oozed and spread there did seem to send a short circuit into her voice synthesizer. which she felt, from the slightly unstable electrical hum in her throat, but she didn't seem too concerned about.]

[her main concern was this fucking swordsman. this blade, somehow, already coming back for another attack no doubt deadlier than the first. she crossed her own sword over her body, ready to defend any strikes to her more vital parts, and croaked out something glitchy, distorted but still understandable.]

Don't you have something better to do?

[the terminal, the Knot remained showcasing their original fight as the scenery around them finally finished blooming into a blocky, square replicate of Bosuma. she wanted his attention drawn elsewhere so she could stab him in the back—that was, of course, the plan. he'd never be able to get to the terminal fast enough to do something about it. right?]

I'm afraid you stand in my way. -Of course he had something more important, the Knot coming back to his thoughts, but even if he was enjoying this fight far far too much, he knew that she'd never let him simply go to his task...

Honestly, this was where Kaneda and Kanesada started to blur. Kasen, the blade, wanted to keep fighting, to keep creating elegant, gorgeous violence with Anna. But Kasen, the artist, Anna's *friend*, wanted to just see the task to its end, to save her from herself...-

Stand down. The next blow will definitely finish this if you don't.

[ha. good. finish it. Anna, Annalise, they weren't here. they were afterthoughts as A2 delighted in the idea of an opponent who could actually fight against her. he'd have done well to remember that.]

I'd love to see you try.

[she was resilient and he was confident and she had no idea which one would actually win out, but A2 would have no end of joy finding out. if it distracted him even more, stopped him from reaching and manipulating and using the Knot, then all the better. she had no intention of moving out of his way, nor did she want to make the first strike. it was always easier to read what one's opponent did first. wasn't it?]

Are you truly in such a hurry to die? -Sure, he could attempt to just disable her arms or legs, changing his usual strategy, but not only was that simply not how Kasen Kanesada approached duels, but he was also certain that would be a graver insult to Anna than simply surrendering.-

Aren't we all?

[what the fuck dramatic bullshit was that supposed to be. her legs moved, bracing herself to prepare to run forward, but she still didn't take a single step.]

Come on. Don't be a coward. I'd love to see what a blade breaks into.

If you are prepared to meet your end, then so be it. -Kasen did the stepping for the both of them, raising his sword once more into an attacking stance, charging to close the distance one more and swinging in towards the inside of her guard, aiming to take her out in a single blow.-

[as much as she'd like to believe she was better, the data didn't bear that out, did it? his file only had information about losing to him. she didn't know what victory in this kind of fight, living weapon versus living weapon, looked like. and in several ways, that hurt her more than the hit that effortlessly made its way through and past her guard.]

[the blade came down and dug deep into her body, leaving a visible gash, a gap through which severed wires poked and the scenery bled. Bosuma faded around the two of them almost immediately, disappearing in small white cubes that floated up weightlessly before vanishing after only a few short seconds of life.]

[A2 wasn't dead, no. not permanently; the Knot would see to that. but she could see on the fringes of her vision how alarms were going off, flashing critical warnings, and she would certainly perish in the same few seconds. and when she did, she would remain there, no longer a threat to accessing the Knot and getting out of here by following the surprisingly simple on-screen prompts. but before then, she needed to spit something out at this blade as the video of their fight flickered and the Knot recorded one last thing.]

You got better.

[and the light behind her eyes died with her gaze still fixed on him.]

I did so because I embraced this self... I have no regrets.

-Kasen didn't sheath his sword, but he did give it a hard flick, freeing any loose bits of A2 from the blade before kneeling at her slumped form, reaching to gently pull her eyes closed if he could.-

Rest in elegance... -He didn't linger long, as there was a reason he'd left his sword open, rising back to his feet once more and turning his gaze towards the knot.-

I exist to cut... -He whispered, largely to himself.- And so I shall, elegantly, in honor of my name. -And began to step towards the knot, leaving A2 behind.-

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