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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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Uh...

[The intelligent thing to do at this point would be to slowly move away from the obviously deranged killer robot girl whose face he recognizes, but Gar has never claimed to be intelligent. Reverting rapidly back to his human form, he simply stares at her for a few moments, wondering what exactly she means.]

...........Hey.

[...His mouth is speaking in spite of himself and some part of his brain recognizes that this is a Very Bad Idea but too much of his old personality has resurfaced and it's just what he does.]

You look kinda upset.

...What's the matter? Someone been... pushing your buttons?

[...]

.........Hahaha, robot pun, get it. No? OK.

[A2 scowls. she's giving him nothing to work with, but as long as he just stands there making bad jokes... well, she doesn't have anything in her code for that. so she can act on her own, which means talking. threatening, mostly, but talking.]

What are you here for?

[down to business, then. her sword stays at her side, blue light dancing off her damaged chassis. and he would do well to answer carefully; A2 does not hope that, because A2 does not hope, but she does not have any problems attacking a child if she must.]

I... don't... really know...?

[He realizes that this is true while he says it. ...He should probably know. But it wasn't like he had decided to get sucked into her crazy dream of his own accord.]

I think I'm supposed to make you feel better, probably... That feels right.

Feel better?

[she takes several slow steps forward until she is standing as face-to-face with him as she can. this is not a fight, she is convinced, that he can win. she forces a screen to appear in the air in front of her, the same video feed the Knot is broadcasting, and she looks over the scene it is playing. of garfieldLogan() making ░░░░ smile and laugh. disgusting. the screen disappears.]

You don't understand the situation you're in. If you know what's good for you, you'll turn around right now and leave.

[no, she doesn't know how to let people actually leave. he can die among the scrap for all she cares as long as he's not here, thinking he can help. reminding A2 of private abstract main().]

Oh -- yeah, I definitely don't understand the situation.

[This is absolutely an accurate assessment of the current state of things. ...Also of his life in general. And Retrospec. And just, everything, really.

Given that he never understands anything, he figures he's not really in that much of a disadvantaged position right now.]

But uh, I don't... think I can leave, either -- [there was no exit sign, he's pretty sure] -- so...

[It's about this time that he notices that she's stepped away from something... something that perhaps, it looks like, she is guarding. He takes a slight breath and faces her somewhat terrifying mien face-on.]

Can I ask what's going on?

[somewhat terrifying? she'll have to try harder.]

Are you telling me you just fell into this without knowing a damn thing about it? And now you're asking the android with the sword what's going on?

[she's not amused, no matter how funny those questions might come across to him.]

Get the hell off this platform. Turn around and keep walking and don't come back up here unless you want to die.

[Under normal circumstances, Gar would be perfectly happy to leave angry robots with swords alone.

But... he strongly suspects that he can neither leave nor actually die in this scenario, and that being the case... he has to at least give a little bit of effort. These dreamscapes feel almost a little bit like a game.

Or a riddle.]

...OK...

[He holds up both hands nonthreateningly, backs away very slowly, and tries his first approach.]

...You're in here somewhere, right, Anna...? What's all of this? ...Something you're afraid of?

[he's playing a different game than the one that has been coded into A2. he's not supposed to be asking questions. that isn't how this goes; she's not a... sphinx, not some metaphor, she's a combat android. but he still hasn't made for the Knot, so as frustrating as it is to be in this situation, attacking right now would go against her program. he's very lucky.]

You won't get the answers you want if you try to ask her. She isn't here. [a lie, but not a large one. only the data making up main() is here, but data is everything in this realm.]

She's afraid of me. And she should be. So should you.

...Why?

[Gar pushes his luck further.]

All you've done is yell at me to go away. ...If you were some kind of monster... I'd probably already be dead.

I know a little about monsters.

I know she's here. Maybe she's not listening, but this is all a part of her, right? You're... a part of her.

If you knew what you were supposed to be here for, you would be dead.

[it's as simple a threat as she can get, because it's the truth, but she won't reveal to him exactly what will get him killed. exactly what he has to do to trigger that if-then statement. whether it's because she doesn't want to or because there's something in his function that's preventing her, she doesn't know and she doesn't care.]

░░░░ coded me. [her lips form the name, but only static comes out.] I exist separately from her. Wherever she is right now, I don't care. But I'm here for a purpose. Which makes one of us.

[her tone stays icy the entire time, as though she's actually going to deter him.]

Coded...?

[He doesn't really understand. ...Wait, no. She's a robot. That's... probably the kind of language she would use. Anna coded her... Anna created her. ...Sure, that makes sense.

This is all some kind of construct of Anna's, isn't it? And the construct... can think what it likes, but it has to be more connected to Anna than it thinks.]

What did Anna code you to do?

[there's the question she was waiting for. a smirk flashes across her face even though her tone doesn't change.]

I'm here to prevent anyone from accessing this terminal. By any means necessary.

[her wrist flicks and the electricity on the blade crackles loudly as a small burst of sparks falls from it.]

Do you think you're better than me?

The terminal...

[That's what she was guarding. ...And if this adventure is as much of a game as he thinks he is, accessing the terminal will help him upload something a little bit less horrifying into this dream world.

He still hasn't really wanted to look too hard at those bodies.]

No...

But I don't have to be better than you.

[He just needs her... to not know certain things about him. And he's pretty sure she doesn't.
With that, he takes one more step back and vanishes.

How observant is this robot? How intelligent? If she looks hard enough, she might spot the tiniest little insect flitting over towards that terminal, smaller than the period at the end of a sentence.]

[it's building on data that she only has the first few lines of, but without actually being able to see what he's turned into it's hard to draw those connections. the buzzing of his wings is difficult to hear over the low-grade fuzz constantly in her ears, so all she does is narrow her eyes and raise her blade. if he's looking for intelligence, he's found the wrong android.]

You can't operate it like that. [she's deathly serious about what she says next.] As soon as you're back to normal, I'm stabbing you through the chest.

[if he's going to play dirty, she'll just play the game the only way she's ever known how to play it. fuck not attacking children. he's going out of his way to sneak past her, but she's better than he is. she's willing to kill.]

[Fortunately, he doesn't plan on turning back to normal.

He's hoping she's watching the terminal intently for his reappearance, because the next thing that she sees will be the appearance of a big black blob coming straight at her.

A enormous jet spray of ink is aimed right at her eyes.]

[shit! fuck. great. okay. it doesn't sting because she's an android and why the hell would that bother her but it's not pleasant and it does completely obscure her vision while she wipes at her eyes. she lets out a loud grunt and swipes her electrified blade out in front of her in hopes of hitting this little green asshole, because there's no way he's not still nearby. within range.]

[if she had some kind of... floating computer meant to assist her with ranged combat in situations like this, maybe she'd be doing better, but unfortunately main() would have no idea what the hell that even meant, so there's no way A2 is just going to get one.]

[Gar also has no idea what that means or how a floating computer could possibly help in any way, but he takes the opportunity afforded by her blindness to hop away from her. Her swing goes wild.

He has maybe like, ten seconds at best to figure out what's going on with this terminal and he doesn't know a single thing about computers, so.

Time to key smash at random, because this is a dream and in dreams, if you typed super fast in 1337 hacker mode, magical things would happen.]

[it isn't especially complicated when he doesn't have any actual access codes or authority among the hierarchy of the program. he could pound away all day and be faced with nothing but error messages and lockouts unless A2 gives him help. and though she's got no desire to actually help, she doesn't have to react to him as such a threat unless something were to happen. with her eyes clear and her hand just slightly dirtier than it already was, she stops trying to swing her sword and stands there with a smug look instead.]

Good fucking luck.

[except this is a dream, and behind the two of them, a white doorway opens up at the top of the stairs as the Knot makes a pleasant chime. that it shouldn't be making because there aren't any speakers. A2's jaw drops open.]

How the hell...?

[the doorway is nothing but white light, and it feels like... home, maybe. it feels like a place A2 doesn't belong, but Gar might want it very much. it's not a threshold A2 can cross, at any rate. and with the door open, there really isn't any more reason to attack him. any smart person would still get out as soon as they could, though.]

[Gar is as surprised as A2 is. He was about 80% sure this was going to end with him getting chopped in half by a robot sword, but this is a much more preferable end and the moment he hears a chime, he is skedaddling away already.]

thanksfortheluckthatwasallyoubyeeeeeeeeeeee.

[And just in case she decides to throw a sword at him or something, it is a tiny green hummingbird that rapidly closes the distance to the doorway.]

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