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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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[finally someone with the good sense to keep their distance. A2 turns around, recognizing the voice, and holds back a dark laugh. public static double jamesBarnes() would think something like that, wouldn't he?]

They outlived their usefulness.

[she's trying to speak clearly, even though the distortion in the air is adding fuzz to her words from this far away. the video feed behind her, coming from the terminal of the Gordian Knot (small though it is), shows a long-haired woman with white hair and black wings speaking silently with jamesBarnes().]

I was already adept at killing. Didn't she tell you?

Yeah, and I never said I doubted that. So who are you trying to prove this to, exactly?

[ Then he realizes that she said "she", not "I." ]

Are you saying you're not the same person as her? You're someone else?

A2.

[she is not pleased to meet him. her voice is emotionless as she introduces herself.]

You ask so many questions. What happens when you don't get answers? [she asks it pointedly; he's already asked more questions in his short time here than most others have in entire interactions. maybe he's looking for data, too, but he won't find it. not given freely, at least.] Does it infuriate you not to know something?

I like to know what I'm dealing with before I do anything.

[ Which is something no one has ever thought about James Barnes before, but he's not really in his right mind lately. ]

What you're dealing with is out of your league.

[more clipped words. meaningless. he'd be wise to turn back, but A2 doubts this is a man who has ever been wise in his life.]

You don't know what you're up against and you don't stand a chance against it. Turn around and walk away.

[ A2 is right, he really has never been wise in his entire life. And he especially doesn't appreciate being told what to do or that he's out of his depth. ]

I'll be the judge of that for myself.

[ He pulls out one of his pistols, holding it at his side for now. He isn't going to attack just yet, but he does want some insurance. ]

Really.

[A2 glances at the pistol. ancient, as far as she's concerned. useless against a robot. her voice is about as dry as it can get, and she's in no mood to even engage him in combat if this is what he's bringing to the metaphorical table.]

Your plan is to shoot me.

[it would be too easy.]

No. If my plan was to shoot you, I would've already shot you.

[ But it doesn't bode well for him that she's so calm about the prospect of it happening. Does that mean she's confident she can dodge the bullets, or is somehow immune to them? ]

[there's always a third option: both of these people could be very, very short on wise decisions.]

Then enlighten me. Are you going to lecture me until I pass out? Or do you have a stage show planned that'll convince me to stand down?

[it's not easy poring through memories, finding the appropriate ones for this particular moment. almost like they're all tangled together. (weird.) but she's still speaking coolly, not one to rise to threats of intimidation when she's used to being the most intimidating one in the room. her wrist flicks to raise the tip of her sword just slightly in his direction.]

[ He shrugs. ]

Why do you think I came here with a plan? I didn't know I was going to be dumped here. If I'm gonna actually do anything, it's only after I know more about what the hell's going on here in the first place.

[ He nods back to the other androids. ]

What happened to them to make them "outlive their usefulness"?

[interesting. he's the first to actually ask about them. A2 has code telling her what to say, of course. it's not a script, but it is... careful. for the first time in a while, coming from Anna's voice.]

We stopped needing them and got stronger without them. Do you think you're entitled to more than that?

I don't think I'm entitled to any of this. I'm just asking questions, and you're deciding whether to answer them or not.

What did you used to need them for?

You'd have to ask her that.

[for A2, they weren't much. target practice. or just targets. just machines, androids that she was sent to kill. or that she decided to kill. it's not clear but she doesn't need clarity, she just needs orders. programs. code.]

You know how she is. Up her own ass in metaphor. You should have heard her when she saw Shakespeare come up.

Really? All that [ he points at the android gore ] for liking Shakespeare? I know he's overrated, but that's a little extreme.

That was an example.

[she gives him a scowl. main() expected him to be smarter. or maybe it was A2 who expected that, based on how much respect main() does have for him.]

I don't know what the hell they mean to her. It's not my fucking business, and it's not any of yours either.

Of course. None of this is your business, apart from killing them, right?

[ He says it coolly, without judgment. ]

[good for him. there's not much of a response for a moment; A2 just glares.]

I hope you've had enough time to come up with a good plan. I'm losing interest in humoring you.

[ He narrows his eyes. This is going to descend into violence soon, isn't it? And James doesn't like his odds against this woman, her confidence tells him it'll be a hard fight. So he doesn't shoot at her.

Instead, he fires two shots straight at the Gordian Knot between the pillars. He has no idea what it is or what it's doing, but he figures it's something important to her somehow, right? ]

[what the—hell. yeah, the Knot's important to her, because she's a product of the Knot and all her data exists on it, and now there's bullet holes in it and somehow nobody actually thought to do that before now?]

[A2's body glitches out like CSS in an outdated browser, her form becoming more jagged and pixelated, broken up into chunks of visual stimuli that don't align quite right and won't align properly again until and if the Knot can repair itself. she's still there and still aware and the actual functions she's running on don't seem to be damaged, but this is still not what she expected. it's bought him... a lot of time.]

Maybe we should call you Alexande-e-e-e-er.

[behind him, a doorway starts to open from the bottom, a horizontal strip of white light slowly growing into what should be an exit. but, well. it's data, too, and from the way the white light is flickering back and forth between static noise, it might not look especially safe.]

What?

[ He has no idea what she's saying, or why. What does "Alexander" have to do with anything?

In his confusion, it takes him a few moments to notice the white light behind him. He turns around to see it, but he makes no move to enter the doorway. Instead, he eyes it suspiciously, tense, ready to shoot again if necessary. ]

[nothing's going to come out of it at him, if that's what he's worried about. behind him, A2's hand is slowly reaching for her weapon—too slowly. like something's messed with the speed she should be executing commands. like somebody shot the thing that's been feeding her code this entire time. weird, right?]

Run.

[that comes out at normal speed. her processor is still running mostly properly; she's still able to think and speak, but acting is apparently going to take some time. her fingers close around the hilt of her katana. when all she has is threats and taunts, that's what she'll have to resort to.]

Coward.

[ James's eyes narrow as he realizes how slow she really is. It's not a tactic or a ruse--she really can't move any faster than this.

Knowing that, and seeing that she has yet to actually pull out the blade, he decides to take advantage of it. Fuck running. She's basically a sitting duck.

He shoots twice more again, this time aiming one bullet for her chest and one for the head. ]

[the bullets hit her with enough force to knock her out of the animation, as it were, and make her body stutter and flicker even more with each hit. the second one gets her right between the eyes and causes the same sort of snow in the doorway behind him to bathe her entire body, her silhouette turning into nothing but static for several long seconds.]

[when she recovers, she's standing stark still, hands at her sides, weapon not drawn. she remains there not saying anything for a moment, until with no visual indication whatsoever, she's much, much closer to him, almost as though she teleported—or that her body's having trouble receiving commands fast enough. like there's some kind of delay between client and server. she's glowering, the bullet still inside her skull with electricity sparking from the rim of the entry wound; there's no exit wound, but it's driven itself deep.]

End it.

[it's an order, and not one she expected herself to give. but she's already been so damaged, and the Knot itself as well, that she doesn't feel like she's in complete control of her body anymore anyway. and that's absolutely horrifying for a construct of raw, calculating code. something that cannot be anything other than in control of itself. her voice is heavily distorted, but at least it's not a long enough sentence where it glitches out.]

I'm trying!

[ He shoots for the head again, not sure how much more damage is required to finally end whatever her body runs on. Maybe if he drives the bullet in deeper with another bullet, it'll finally kill her. ]

[good eye, sniper.]

[her head jerks back and this time, her body goes with it, laying her out flat on the ground. her entire form is glitching, impossible to keep stable right now, and the snow at the exit flickers faster and faster, growing unbearable to look at. a puddle of red is streaming from under A2's head, the tips of her fiber-optic hair absorbing it and sticking together and clumping. and the snow—]

[stops. A2's own vision goes dark and the Knot ceases its whirring and the way out of the dream clears up. it's pure white and sure as hell has to be safer than being in here—because no, A2 isn't dead. deactivated temporarily. long enough to leave others to escape, before the Knot kicks back on and reconstructs her. this is how this function ends. this is how this function has always ended, but the program goes on.]

[this is victory. or close enough to it.]

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