recolle | (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

[ when eren looks up

oh my god

because he just came from down those stairs. now he has to go back up, dear lord. either way, it’s what he gets for being far less observant and rushed enough to forget detail. up the stairs eren goes again with a hiss to himself— hopefully they’d let him climb up again. ]

[ Well no, he didn't start up top on the pyramid? In fact, as he's heading there, some people are going to more actively and more pressingly get in his way. In fact, several of those gun emplacements time on him as he starts up the stairs.

What does he think he's doing? There's the king up there. ]

[ he’s climbing, to get to—

well, whatever that name was. he only knew a natalia. he’s not particularly worried about gunshots, but when one brute happens to block his way completely, he simply tells them: ]

If she’s here, I need to see her.

Who, the princess?!

[ Yeah okay, these were warning shots, but more importantly, these hulk guys are buying time for one particular person to arrive. Though Eren might not know that yet. ]

Yeah, The Princess!!

[ he sees no sign of her, even then— and the more he sees it, the it looks like he’s going to need to fight. so, dreamworld allowing so, he pulls out a blade to the weapon most comfortable to him, his maneuver gear. he wants to see anyone get close to him with blades made to bite into flesh like paper. ]

[ There is not a sign of her... unless you can notice the fact that the woman (who has two arms!) in the flower-rabbit-mask thing matches her figure. But the point of the matter is that - even if this is a dream, it's a Dream Dive. This is a mental dungeon Eren's in. So while it might cooperate enough for him to be armed, it's not going to cooperate for his opponent.

Because unless he notices it before it happens, from behind is a young man over six feet tall in "heavy" albeit exposed black armor and wielding a spear as big as he is. But more pressingly, he's borderline supernaturally strong and fast, that blow to the back of Eren's head coming towards him has the force of a a car, honestly. ]

[ the force of the car at the back of someone’s head can usually lead to passing out, or concussions. eren feels the thwunk and instantly sees his vision blur as he goes down for the count.

just when he thought he saw . . . her . . . or was that his mind playing more tricks on him? he hopes that the warmth at the back of his head is flesh, or blood, and calls for the power dormant inside, tapping into it to spark. he hopes he starts sparking. how deep was he going?

what was his resolve here? he breathes, and drags himself up when everything still swirves. he blinks heavily, and tosses his blade to the side. he’s not going to make it easy for any prison. this was eren jaeger, breaker of chains. ]

[ Him sparking, either physically or metaphorically, does actually get everyone's interest here. In fact, it might echo in the back of his head the voice of Natalia (Nachetanya?) Eren's name, and the sounds of footsteps moving closer to him on the stairs. The clanking of some guards-

And...

Well, there's a decent chance here of people trying to take him to prison. How in line can he keep his thoughts. ]

[ it's not the first time he's been taken to prison. he's been taking to prison many times, and he'll probably be dragged there by the knees. he tries to speak out— Nat?

but he gurgles his words. time to go to prison. ]

[ Time indeed.

... Who knows how time passes in a dive. Because when Eren awakens, there is going to be someone there next to him in the cell. Or well, something? It's some sort of small dog, waiting there to see the young man awaken after that bad scene of him being dragged off with hopefully not a concussion. ]

[ the dizzy sight of bars and walls surrounding him is not a new one; eren slowly comes to and sits upright, head pounding but any and all injuries healed—

the first thing is a very odd looking dog, and at first, eren only stares, before snapping his fingers at it and offering his hand. ]

How deep am I . . . ?

[ and the dog... speaks. It has a surprisingly dignified voice, ]

You are quite deep now!