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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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Derek seriously looks like e's half going to pass out as the conversation plays out, but the young woman seems happy enough to accept, and Kenta almost rolls his eyes as it does... only to see the scene disappear and the key to appear.

He hesitates for a second, then holds out his hand to grab it.]

[When Kenta grabs the key, he will feel a pull, as if he is being lurched forward. This feeling will continue until he suddenly comes to a dead stop. To his left will be a huge iron door with a lock. If Kenta tries to open it, he will fail. It will not budge. To his right is a much more plain door. It's the door to the Recolle Crime Labs. If he enters through this door (because it's unlocked), he will find all the different desks of the different CSI members. Kenta might even recognize some other names of CSI people he may know. Perhaps the key goes to one of the desks in the room?]

[The huge door isn't moving, so he goes to the other one.

He's never been into a crime lab, and he hasn't even seen one on TV, so it takes him a moment to understand where exactly he is. No one seems to be there, so he starts snooping, looking at papers, pressing keys on the keyboards of the computer to see if something interesting pops up.

Derek's desk should be somewhere in there, and there's a part of Kenta that feels strangely vindicated. He knew he was the one going crazy, Derek.]

[Once Kenta finds Derek's desk, he will see that it is kept immaculately kept on the outside. Once he starts opening drawers, he will notice that papers and files will not seem to have any logical organization to them. Derek is one of those people who can find organization in chaos. One drawer is locked though. Hmmmm, I wonder what will be able to open it?

Because inside the drawer is a small black box containing this. Yup, this was the ring AU1 Derek had bought to propose to his ex (the girl you just convinced Derek to ask out). It apparently got very serious. You might want to pick that up.]

[Kenta picks up the box and opens it, watching the beautiful ring inside for a while. Then, he closes it again and puts it in his pocket, because it seems to be important.

This appears to be the only thing not work related in the area, but he'll keep snooping just in case.]

[As soon as the ring box drops into Kenta's pocket the scene around him changes and Kenta is suddenly in Derek's AU1 apartment. This should seem familiar to Kenta. A familiar face will greet Kenta. It's Blaise, Derek's cat. But this isn't the Blaise that Kenta knows who likes him. This is dream dive Blaise and he's here to protect Derek's inner most secrets. Which will probably involve Blaise jumping at Kenta and latching on onto his leg. How do you get past him?

In the kitchen Kenta will find all the supplies, recipe, and ingredient laid out on the counter to make Blaise's favorite homemade cat food. Happy cooking.]

[... Well then. It was Suzuki-san who made the earlier homemade food for Blaise, and Kenta is pretty hopeless in the kitchen, but since there is a recipe, he will attempt to follow it.

He ends up with small cuts all over his fingers but still applies himself. The results... don't look half as good as what Suzuki-dan could make, but he hopes the effort will count for something as he holds out the bowl with its offering to the dream cat.]

[Dream Blaise hops up on the counter and look at the "cat food" in the bowl. He sniffs it and then takes a small bite of it, his tail flicking as he determines whether he likes it or not. He swallows the food and then sits there, looking at the bowl. It probably feels like forever, but Blaise eventually lean down and takes another bite. Success! Kenta is now free to walk around the apartment without getting mauled by a cat!

The only thing Kenta might find a bit strange is the teddy bear dressed in a Sherlock Holmes outfit sitting on Derek's bed. Why? Because once Kenta enters the room, it's eyes will flow you wherever he goes.]

[It feels weird to just go through Derek's stuff. Kenta is an intensely private person and he knows he would hate it if it happened to him, so he is reluctant to do the same to someone else. But clearly he is meant to find something here.

Th bear does catch his eyes after a while and he stops in front of it before holding out a hand to grab it gently. Could there be something inside of it?]

[When Kenta picks up the bear, the bear opens it's mouth and starts to speak. His voice sounds like Patrick Stewart (of course it does, Derek LOVES Star Trek, so why wouldn't he dream bear sound like the captain of the Enterprise C?) Don't drop him Kenta!]

"Derek needs your help. Will you help Derek, and unlock the door to his missing memories? These are memories Derek has been desperately trying to remember. If you will, you must answer four questions to prove that you truly care about Derek. Do you accept this task?"

[Kenta almost jumps out of his skin when the bear speaks to him. He unfortunately does not identify the voice at all, but he manages not to drop the bear, thankfully.

He's not sure he is the best person for this, though. He has not known Derek all that long all things considered. but now that he's made it all the way here...]

...Yes.

[The bear clears his throat and speak again.]

"Good. Now, question one. What do you think is Derek's best quality and why?"

... His best quality?

[... How is he supposed to answer that? He's known Derek for maybe seven months only. He tries to think back about times in the dojo, or out and about.]

I would say... how determined he can be when he wants something. Once he has a goal in mind, he will stop at nothing to try and get there. He doesn't give up.

[The bear listens and then nods.]

Acceptable answer. Next question: What is your relationship with Derek?

... We're friends?

[He is relatively sure that's the right word to describe it. It was strange to him at first since Jirou was his only friend for the longest time, too.]

[The bear gives Kenta a scrutinizing look.]

Is that doubt I hear in your voice? Are you friends or not?

Well... it's more that I've never had that many friends myself. So I think that's what most people would call it. I just don't have much to compare with, that's all. I think that's what ha would call me, and I'm honored he would.

[Hopefully that's good enough, because Kenta can't see himself digging into his complicated relationship with feelings and people with a stuffed bear.

Also hopefully the next questions aren't as... difficult.]

[The bear continues to scrutinize Kenta, but he continues.]

If you are truly his friend... then, Derek's birthday is coming up in September, what will you get him?

Well, I haven't known him very long, so I don't know what he would like very well... so I was thinking of buying him drinks. Maybe another nice bottle since he liked the one we gave him when he moved.

[derek does appear to like his alcohol, and being around Kenta and some of his other Asian friends seems to have given hima taste of good sake, so... that should work?

Why is he feeling judged by a stuffed bear? This is not a comfortable feeling.]

[The bear listens and then nods in approval. Sake is a good answer.]

Acceptable answer. Now, last question. Will you promise to share what you are about to see with Derek when you wake up?

[The bear gives Kenta a very stern look.]

Can I ask you a question?

[Let's set aside that he is talking about this with a stuffed bear for a second.]

Is it really, really important that I tell him? If it is, I will. It's just... he probably won't be happy about any of it.

[The bear stares at Kenta, as if he couldn't believe Kenta was really daring to ask such a question.]

You are in Derek's sub conscience are you not? So wouldn't the bear talking to you in his sub conscience know what Derek would and would not like to know? Besides, you are not aware of what you might see if you agree to tell Derek. It might be a good thing you will see. So will you tell him or not?

.. Is that where I am?

[Sorry, but there wasn't exactly a sign.]

If you're sure, then yes, I'll tell him.

[The bear sighs. Where did you think you were Kenta?]

Your answer is acceptable.

[The bear suddenly lights up and a key, a very old looking key comes out of the bear. If Kenta takes it he will be pulled back to the room with two doors. Kenta now has the key to open the door he couldn't before.]

[Well then... There's not much else to do but to go and open the door, probably. Hopefully he has reached the end of that particular labyrinth.

He will go and unlock the door, and push it open.]