recolle | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[...What.]

[Luna's dog bounded back to her as the creature came out of the water, both animals taking up space on either side of her, low and ready to pounce as the teen just stared up at the monster as it stared down at her.]

[Some little part of her was freaking out, that she needed to teleport away, now, anywhere but here, but she was too frozen to even do that...]

[The shadowy creature didn't respond to the monsters; they weren't attacking, so they weren't yet of any concern. It didn't even blink.

But it did speak, sound rumbling out of the amorphous shadow that was its head.]

...I know you.

[It was Lucy's voice.]

I...know you?

[But it wasn't just one voice. It was layered with a second voice, a third, fourth—Lucy when she was younger, when she was older, when she was at her most sullen, when she was in a better mood. Lucy from many different points in time, condensed into one. Right now, the dominant voice was confused and almost sleepy, like she was at best half awake.]

Did I dream you?

[Now that was enough for Luna to almost fall down in shock, and the only reason she didn't was the hand on the dog standing next to her. But it was very close, regardless.]

...Lucy?

[She said the name like she was shocked it was even possible because...well, she was.]

I don't...what?

[How could this be her sister's dream...]

[Lucy's mind was a very...special, place. She was alone, save for the echoing whispers of her own voice. She was something...else, something not human and not animal. She was hidden, and hiding pieces of herself at once.

And she knew that name. It was hers, at some point. Wasn't it? All those facets of herself snapped back to the same point in time, to the same person. But who was at the end of the echoes?

When she saw her sister(? yes, they were sisters) begin to fall, there was a sluggish stirring of some of the spindly, shadowy legs. A hand sleepily reached out from the water to catch her--but it wasn't needed. And she was too slow, anyway. The girl had caught herself just fine.

The shadowy hand lowered back into the murky lake the creature stood on like a monstrous water strider.]

...name. What's your...name?

...Luna. [She answered after longer than she meant to pause, still frowning up at the...thing. Monster. How could that be her sister?]

...What's yours?

[She asked, force in her words she definitely wasn't feeling. A bit of the Lumina courage she had seen in all those memories being forced into her spine, maybe.]

Luna. [The thing repeated, sleepily.

And it finally did blink, or at least its eyes slowly vanished and reappeared in the dark.]

...Lucy. I'm...called Lucy, right now. I think I'm...someone else, other times.

[There was another layer to the voices, one interspersed with sounds that might have been "nyu." It was just one amongst many sleepy mutters.]

[Okay. Okay. She had to just...try and...wrap her head around this. If this was her sister, somehow, in this insane dream...]

...Why do you like that?

[The question came out before she could stop it, and her eyes went a bit wide as she realized what she had said.]

[The words took awhile to filter in through that fragmented mind.]

Why do I...?

[But when they did, the creature went stiff at its shadowy shoulders.]

I don't...don't want to be like this. [The sluggishness cleared away from its voice, and the lake's surface began to tremble with ripples.] I am this way, I'm supposed to be, I deserve it--

[The creature's head drew back to its former height, its sleepy mutters escalating to a shout as it glared down at Luna from so far above.]

I don't like this!

[But. It's familiar. Misery and all. Change was frightening. What if it was worse? Wasn't this good enough?]

Woah. [Luna took several steps backwards as those shouts started to escalate, barely keeping from bolting back into the elevator. If that was her sister somehow, this was...dangerous? Insane?]

[Complicated, at least.]

[She managed to draw herself up, gathering her courage.]

I'm sorry I asked! Calm down!

[Probably not helpful...]

I am calm! [The creature shouted, churning the lake up more violently. But it didn't leave the water, and the waves subsided into angry little ripples as the baldfaced hypocrisy caught up to her.

The shadow's head dropped level to its shoulders, each movement an exxagerated echo of Lucy's own mannerisms.]

...I'm not calm. But if I stop, I'll fall. Drown. Useless.

[The shadow didn't shout again, its voice a growling, echoing grumble.]

You're really not.

[Even in a terrified moment, Luna's sass was always going to be there, wasn't it...]

[Okay, it was talking and not screaming again that was good...that was something...]

And you're way too tall to drown!

[She's doing amazingly well for staring down a warped facet of her sister's psyche.]

That's not what I meant. [The shadow grumbled, swinging its head from side to side.]

I'll stop moving and stop being angry and won't get anywhere at all. [Now the Lucy-voices wouldn't stop jabbering, increasingly talking over each other.]

You don't have to be angry.

[Luna said this as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. And yet somehow it felt a bit off when thinking about Lucy? But her sister wasn't always angry...A little grumpy, maybe, but...]

Ugh. [She did not know how to process all those voices.]

Stop whispering like that!

Then what am I supposed to be? [One of the voices snapped, the others were mostly more subdued, and all of them some degree of frustrated.]

I can't just stop them. They're--I'm. It's me.

[The shadow-creature's anger paused a moment, and the light in its chest grew brighter, more exposed with the moment of weakness.]

...I don't know which me I am.

[Well. That was...complicated. Why were these dreams so complicated? God she hoped she was right...]

[She bit her lip, sorting out her thoughts before she spoke again. Okay strange monster creature...]

...You're my sister. Lucy.

[The shadow was still, head lowered like it was deep in thought. The water's surface still rippled, but it didn't thrash again.

There were pink haired girls in her memory. Memories. Some that looked like her, some who didn't. Luna was one who did, or should have been.

Lucy grabbed onto that line of thought, uncurling the trailing ideas that went with it. For a moment, her voice stopped being so echoey.]

...where's mom?

[Well that was something? She sounded more like her sister, at least. It sounded. God this was weird.]

Uh.

[Luna wasn't sure, really.]

Weeeeell, I'm pretty sure I fell asleep in class, so...probably...at work?

But she's here? In Recolle?

[Not far away, not missing, not some faceless entity she had the phone number of but never called.

A little more, and the thread would start to unspool from the other thoughts, the other memories.]

[Luna hesitated again. That was a weird question...]

I mean, she was here when she scolded me this morning for not eating my cereal so...

Preeeeetty sure.

[The shadow considered this, along with the other things it was considering.

...but if that was true, if their--their--mother was here, then it meant she wouldn't be quite so alone. And that was a greater temptation than she could resist.

Silently, the shadow drifted to the edge of the lake, closest to Luna. It looked down at the girl again, with its unblinking red eyes. That was right. She was usually looking down at Luna, but only because she was the older sister and taller. But not this tall.

The shadow began losing cohesion, its back and many legs fraying into indistinct bits of black. It shrank, and the glowing wound in its chest did too until it was impossible to see.

Because the shadow was gone now. It was Lucy--Lucy as Luna remembered her from just earlier today, with Minako's ribbons tied to her horns--who stepped out of the lake's shallows onto the rocks surrounding it, though her steps were uncertain and shaky.]

[Luna didn't know what to make of the silence as the monster stared at her, and was quite close to calling out something else when it suddenly started to...shrink? That was good, probably. Right?]

[Please be good.

[When it disappeared into the water and was suddenly...Lucy, standing there, looking perfectly normal and lucy-like, Luna let out a breath she hadn't even known she was holding a took a couple steps forward, hesitating, uncertain....]

Jeez sis, you had me worried for a minute there. Though I might've gone crazy or something!

[But she could pretend she hadn't been scared, of course.]

[Lucy wobbled, and didn't trust herself to move too much more in case she fell. She reached out with her fingers--her normal, solid, not-ghostly ones--to brush them against Luna's shoulder, to make sure her sister was solid and there. And she was.]

Sorry.

[It didn't cover...nearly all the things she should say, but it was the best Lucy could manage right now. She sounded tired again, but when she spoke it was only with one voice.

Her head still felt crowded, like there was more than one person's thoughts in there.]

[Luna held still as her sister reached for her, almost as relieved as she was that the touch connected.]

Sooooo....

[She frowned up at the older girl.]

What was with the giant spider monster thing, huh?

[Lucy glanced back at the still water of the lake, its surface mirrorlike again. It was still dark, and there was no telling what was still down there.]

...I think that was me. A lot of me's.

[She knew it was, in the part of her mind she didn't want to acknowledge. A monstrous, inhuman mess of contradictions and hidden things that shouldn't exist, but did anything.]

Here is...full of memories. They're all mine. Some...most, I don't want. Can't get rid of them.

Huh. [Luna wasn't really sure what to make of that, but the problem with multiple memories wasn't new. Still...after a few seconds she stepped forward to give her sister a hug.]

Well, you look a lot better this way. [She joked.]