Week seven

[letsplayamod]

After that particularly hectic trial, if it could even be called that, you were free to go your own way. The sun had set on Ferdinand and Omega's attempt to enact vengeance upon Typhon, and while your combined efforts were clearly enough to damage him, he managed to slink off with both of your former companions. No doubt, probably licking his wounds, or whatever the Titan plans to do in his refuge between the realms.

It's another new week on the island. Outside, things have continued to change - standing by the cliffs will reveal that not only has the water against the rocks receded further, but the entire ocean has as well. You hear birdsong in the distance, and even the plants have turned greener despite the drawbacks from Typhon's trickery. No matter the horrors everyone's experienced, it seems the island continues to grow healthier.

There's still time to enjoy the benefits that provides. Down on the deepest level, the stairs to... How odd. The stairs still refuse you passage. Looks like there's no new floor to investigate this week!

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

Profiles | Locations | Regains | IC Rules | Weekly AC

Quark's Bar & Cafe

Comments

Sunday

[letsplayamod]

[raisethemoon]

[ Ever since the trial, Luna's been notably more withdrawn than usual. She's being ridiculous, in some ways. Wasn't it worse last week? The week before that? At least this time they didn't all have to watch Ferdinand bleed out...

She shakes her head sharply. Leave it.

Late in the morning, even later than her usual waking time, she finally emerges and makes her way to the kitchen for a light breakfast. Ordinarily she'd go for a flight around the grounds, but...she's used to encountering Ferdinand during those outings. She isn't eager for the first one without him. So she eats awkwardly standing near one of the counters, not quite willing to commit to the shared eating space. It's fine. She's used to that kind of thing, isn't she?

That done, she goes down to the library to collect some new books. She'll just take them and have a quiet day. It's like the regular quiet nights she has, except...during the daytime while everyone else is also awake!!! That's fine!!!!! ]

Library

[latinumsbetter]

[Okay listen, maybe he's been keeping an eye out for Luna since this morning, and finally spotted her leaving the kitchen. And maybe he very silently follows her down to the library. He can be surprisingly light-footed when he wants to, and he thinks he's following at a safe enough distance, anyway.

So, once she's got a few books, he's just going to lean on one of the pillars behind her and say:]

Planning on making your own library?

kitchen

[sweetsynergy]

[Vanity does not venture out of her room much on Sunday, but. Pink fighter needs food, badly. She enters the kitchen, pausing for just a second as she sees Luna.]

Hey. Decision paralysis, Princess?

[stringup]

[ Come Sunday morning, Velvet is up uncharacteristically early to go to the stables, Ferdinand's list of care of instructions in hand. It's not as if she got much sleep anyway, so she may as well. She goes about it somewhat awkwardly, as someone unused to this kind of work. Thank goodness for how detailed the instructions are, at least.

She counts herself lucky that she's familiar enough to Derick that he doesn't fuss much when she goes to feed him.

On the other hand, once she gets to Liora— ]

Ferdinand, why does your horse have to hate me...

[ Look. It's impressive how much of a murderous aura this single war horse can direct at a person. ]

[ Later that afternoon, she finally wills herself to go to the fourth floor crafts room so she can make death shrouds. Even with what they know after the seance, it...felt wrong to not make them for Ferdinand and Omega. She figures it's also as good a time as any to go through the messages left for her, since she couldn't bring herself to do it last night.

Once she's picked out fabric and thread, she settles down and plays Omega's message first. The expression on her face is difficult to read, but she seems pretty downcast nonetheless.

Then, she opens Ferdinand's letter for her. She bites her lower lip as she reads through it, finally scrubbing at her eyes with one hand. ]

...Idiot. What's the point of going to the stars if you aren't there?

Monday

[letsplayamod]

investigation-ish

[sweetsynergy]

[Vanity spends most of the day Sunday in her room, recuperating from the last week. And her chat with Quark afterwards. When she finally steps out, she's greeted by- a small, skeletal bird. Bearing a holographic missive.]

What.

[beta probably had to wait so long for her to come out of her room i'm so sorry]

[But as Vanity settles in to open the cafe in the eatery, she takes a moment to play the message Omega's left for her.]

...asshole can't even die without being weird about it.

[But then she gets to the last part, and her eyes light up. She flicks through the other data available on the disc, skimming over schematics and designs.]

[So later in the day she's dragged the holodisk and the remains of the Egg Chaser down to the forge.]

[Vanity might be far from a mechanic or engineer, but she has a disk full of plans and the ability to read, she's trying to see if she can get this thing even somewhere approaching functional.]

[Later still, successful or not, she's back at it again in the training grounds, once again in her combat uniform but now armed with the twin-fists she showed off after the trial. The training dummies are mostly intact- one unfortunate individual has been pummeled and shredded- but she mostly using the fists to flip and parkour around the obstacle course as quickly as she can, skipping around it in unintended ways.]

[speedrun strats, or something]

[The part where she whiffs a jump and has to jam the claws into the edge of the next platform probably isn't intentional, especially judging by the way she hangs there for a second before tugging herself free and dropping to the ground. And then notices whoever saw that.]

...Meant to do that.

investigation-ish

[letsplayamod]

[It will take a bit of elbow grease and some makeshift efforts, but you should have what you need to get it operational.]

Cafe

[yourheroine]

[Good morning, Vanity. Aoi is here to have some breakfast, when she overhears the message.]

Omega left Vanity one too?

Tuesday

[letsplayamod]

MOTIVE: There Is So Much Guilt Inside Your Heart [cw: hallucinations]

[letsplayamod]

[After everything last Friday, you might have assumed that Typhon would go dormant this week. Or, maybe you’ve considered the thought that you’d managed to scare the Titan away for good. Wouldn’t that be a small mercy in a heap of pain.

The wind almost seems to hold you in its condolence as the clouds roll in, and a familiar red hue bleeds all the colour from the sky.]

You thought you had seen the end of me. Fools… Though, you have struck a blow, I will be the last to–

Typhon.

[Typhon’s voice cuts out. The gloom recedes a bit.]

Enough floundering. Grant them their “boon”.

[The voice is commanding, despite a decidedly kind tone. When Typhon’s voice returns, it is bitter.]

This is no boon. Let it sit with you, and if it drives you to kill, I will be here. Watching.

[... Nothing happens. Not at first. What will happen, when the first of you looks down from the sky and at one of your fellow godlings, is catching a glimpse of someone you know who isn’t here standing beside them or perhaps the scenery blinks to become somewhere more familiar to you. It’s quicker than it seems, and yet it feels so real…and you’re not the only one who saw it.]

This… isn’t over. Not yet.

Enjoy these false moments of peace.

[The voices fade. It’s just you again, and this… incentive.]



[OOC: It’s the hallucination motive, everybody! With a twist.

These hallucinations aren't only for your character; anyone who is close enough (the amount of distance is player choice) can see it, too! The hallucinations will start small: people they know (including the dead here) or familiar places. Hallucinations of people are able to speak and will act like the real person. As the week progresses, these hallucinations will grow stronger, becoming more solid and more visible to both the person hallucinating and anyone close enough to see it. Character memories, both positive and negative, might even start to play out like a familiar scene, impressing on the person hallucinating their thoughts and emotions of that time...and sharing them with their observers.

Everyone has gotten to be so upfront with their secrets, surely there’s nothing left they don't want anyone to see. ;3]

cw: gore

[sweetsynergy]

The fuck's that supposed to-

[And as Vanity looks down from the sky, arms folded, she has a brief start and jerks an inch to the side as, for a second, a stern man sporting a gaping hole in his chest looms beside her. The phantom businessman is gone as soon as he arrives, but it takes a second for Vanity to visibly relax.]

[Relatively, anyway.]

Ah. Pissballs.

[yourheroine]

[A second voice. Aoi can't help but call out despite herself:]

Are you the one who blocked--...

[Then Aoi sees somebody next to her and finds herself distracted. She reaches out to her, but she's gone as quickly as she appeared.]

Miyuki...

[pariunt]

[Astarion says nothing.

He's been avoiding people since the trial, after all. And though Omega may have entered the bar even after being banned, Astarion has stayed out of it entirely. He doesn't even react verbally to this latest motive.

What could possibly happen now? He's ready to leave when he sees someone in the corner of his eyes, and bolts.]

1/2

[fillets]

[ Hey, mods! Is there any energy signature to go with the second voice, or is this all Typhon?

No matter the answer, Riful spends an awful long time trying to figure it out. For all she knows, that thing has been staring at her all the while. ]

mind cws in prompts

[yourheroine]

[After the motive, Aoi is going to try and distract herself via inspecting the lifts. They’ll have to blow them up to get further down, yeah? She should focus on that.]

cw: infidelity, sexual themes, slut shaming, bad vibes, & totono spoilers in this prompt

[At some point when Aoi is outside, while avoiding thinking about all of the issues with the motive, she finds herself in someone’s living room that appeared out of nowhere. Four people’s silhouettes flicker as they eat cake, and one slender, bowtie-wearing person hands a small box to a shaggy-haired boy with no other distinctive features. Aoi freezes at the sight while he opens it sadistically slowly.

”Wow! It’s the same hairpin I gave Aoi!”

Aoi scrambles in her pockets for her hairpin, as if following the exact script of the scene.]

No, Aoi didn’t…

[Please don’t put her through this again. Even if she thinks she deserves it.

The TV comes to life with security footage of a corner store, and a silhouette that looks like Aoi with that slender person. The shaggy-haired boy stands up, speaking in a forced calm.

”Tell me, Aoi. We’re boyfriend and girlfriend, aren’t we? So why were you kissing him?”]

…Shinichi…

[She knows what’s coming. She doesn’t feel prepared for it.]

open to you know who (likely cw for Several Things and Totono spoilers)

[Sometime later, Aoi is out staring at the end of the cliff, holding her phone. She’s alone.

Well, not really. A dark-haired girl has settled comfortably next to her.]

You’re…are you really Miyuki? You can’t be, right?

The real Miyuki…would never want to see Aoi again.

[catsgothistongue]

[Ranma waits, and he waits, and he waits some more for the other shoe to drop.

It never does.]

... Awesome, our incentive to kill is hearin' your boss's voice. Feelin' really murder-y right about n--

[Meow!~

Retorts are replaced by a yelp and Ranma instinctively jumping onto the nearest thing to perch on... which more than likely is one of the people here. His eyes frantically search the area for--

MEOW!~

That! Yet no matter where he looks he only sees the literal tail end. Those around him may catch it clearer, a pink kitty with bells ghosting in and out of Ranma's peripheral with a cheerful, loving trill.

... One may also catch the fleeting aroma of some meaty food that comes and goes in the air.]

cw: dissociation in the last prompt

[brokenhabit]

[ After the motive (and doing her best to ignore the flash of red she saw out of the corner of her eye), Lebkuchen makes her rounds creating new memorials for the fallen. She's recharged her energy enough over the past few days that she feels she can successfully handle It's a different outfit today and she has her hair done differently to match. Part of the experimenting she's been doing to figure out what she likes and doesn't like now that she doesn't need to keep her appearance a certain way.

Of course it would be today that she would get the reminder of why she hasn't experimented like this before.

As she goes from the Ferdinand and Omega's doors and out to the cliff arena where Ferdinand was found she's followed behind by this ugly ass motherfucker who seems to be sharply criticizing her appearance. She just keeps walking, like she can't hear any of it.

When that's all done she finds her way down to the Elysian Gardens. She makes her way to the giant cypress tree and after a long while staring at it, uses her vines to hang a swing off its branches. She gets on and starts swinging from it, but as she does the scenery around her starts to shift, complete with an sweet old woman watching her. ]

Oh my darling, you still love that old thing even now, don't you?

[ Again, Lebkuchen ignores it. Or she's trying to anyway.

After the meeting she returns to this spot. The bakery and her granny are long gone of course and she takes a spot on the ground beneath the tree, holding a book with both hands while one of Aglaea's garmentmakers stands nearby, as if guarding the area.

...She should open it. She should just open it already and see what's inside--

In her field of view though an all too familiar head of brown hair flops into her lap, staring at her with a big smile. ]

For goodness' sake, Leb - what are you doing sulking out here on your own over that grisly book?!

[ She freezes. Ah. Of course she couldn't avoid her forever. ]

Um... by the way... your new look is... nice.

[ Her hands lifts up to caress a cheek and merely phases through. ]

I always told you you'd look better without that dustrag on your head...

[ The scene continues to play out with tender affection. To outside eyes it's a lovely moment between a reunited couple, a girl in love complimenting her dearest while also demanding her whole attention by laying on her lap.

...But mentally Lebkuchen is not actually here at all. ]

cw for seppuku mention, trauma, bad times had by all

[catsgothistongue]

[He took off for the hills without really looking where he was going. Couldn't think, rely on instincts, until there's nary a whisker or tail to be seen. Perfect, their minds are gonna be screwed with. It shouldn't be a surprise, they've witness Typhon's capability to alter their minds, thanks to Zvei. Ranma stops running like a headless chicken right at the cornucopia, flinging a sizeable offering into the horn. When in doubt, gamble your woes away. Piling up, Ranma was already scarfing down the food while inspecting his spoils. Yes, that includes the bacon t-shirt.

Apart from the food and the umbrella (would've been nice to have that tossed out a month ago, but that's just his luck), there wasn't really anything worth keeping. And some of these... Ranma goes on the hunt after rounding up specific items, for Velvet, Vanity and... surprisingly, the sirens in the music room. Although it was all a fool's errand in the end, that trident turned out to be good for more than spearing fish. Only feels right to repay the favor. He approaches the edge, holding a doll. It wasn't another fake-him, it was a siren plush in the visage of a blue-haired tomboy.

Ranma was going to leave it there and tell the siren to have at it, but all at once, the air begins to heat up like someone cranked up the temperature and he feels his heart stop. The siren!Akane doll warps to another. Human, with a tranquil smile and not the razor-toothed man-eating grin and blank eyes gradually shutting. Just like on Mt. Phoenix. Rational thoughts get put on the backburner, fear taking the steering wheel. Ranma picks the doll up hastily yet gingerly like the wrong move could damage such a fragile delicate thing, and dunks it- dunks her in the water.]

C'mon, c'mon! Work, dammit!

[It worked then so why isn't it working now, why isn't she turning back to normal, why are her eyelids still dropping please Akane don't leave him he can't lose you!. Anyone hearing his yelling will find the pigtailed boy-- or, girl cause she's sitting in the water cradling a doll underwater, a harrowing desperation transparent on her face.

Sadly, this won't be his last run-in with unpleasant memories today. All the food dispensed from the cornucopia like vending machine snacks weren't filling enough. Ranma enters the kitchen and gets to cooking a tasty, healthy meal for a growing boy--

Any thought pertaining to food fades when a hand places itself on his shoulder. Ranma doesn't flinch, something in his gut- his heart telling him he shouldn't. Petite, gentle, if the calming touch wasn't enough to clue him in then the motherly]

Son.

[from behind tells him everything. He almost drops the skillet with how fast he turned to face her. There, right there, stands an older woman, one who bore a familiar resemblance to Ranma, particularly his feminine form. If she was taller, wore her hair up differently, and had purple hair. Anyone who stumbles in will see Ranma standing stock-still, saying nothing but reading his lips, it's easy to make out what he's mouthing and who this woman is: Mom?

She should be a sight for sore eyes. Seeing her again should calm him down. And yet, Ranma's eyes traces his 'mother's' hands to the handle of a sheathed katana.]

... No, I don't suppose that's correct, calling you my son. Letting so many die around you isn't very manly, Ranma...

['Nodoka' speaks in that disapproving, disappointing tone only a mother could give, her eyes never losing their soft look, yet carry a sharp edge that betrays anything nurturing. Ranma refuses to look her in the eye, frozen on the spot and shrinking more when the katana's blade becomes more visible.]

Wednesday

[letsplayamod]

[literarybehemoth]

[Oh, cool. This is great, actually. Said no one ever. Manulov is, at the least, apparently doing a pretty decent job of ignoring his sleep paralysis demon by anyone's observation of him. He seems to be just. Eating breakfast. Reading in the library. Stretched out in the sunlight.

You know. With some old woman just kind of standing over him. At least... something shaped like an old woman? From a distance, she just kind of looks like your standard Fantasy Crone. But if you get closer and start looking at her too hard, she looks... wrong. Human-shaped, but not human. She looks... composited from different materials, perhaps. Like an old computer dreamed up a picture of a witch and made it out of pictures of iron and rust and stone and wood and smoke and scales. She is both human sized and enormous. She is there and not. She is, at the very least, silent. She is patient. She can wait.

Her teeth are iron, from the grin she wears whenever Manulov catches her out of the corner of his eye. But you know. He's fine.

He's perfectly fine.

There's nothing weird going on at all. Any attempt to interact with Manulov will, at least, find him perfectly... Manulov.]

Can I help you?

cw: abuse, gore, hallucinations

[sweetsynergy]

[Wednesday afternoon sees Vanity down in the forge, working on repairing and modifying the discarded Egg Chaser with frequent stops to check over the schematics and notes on Omega's holodisk. ]

"This is what you're wasting your time on now, One-Two-One? Pathetic."

[Vanity frowns, squatting and fiddling with the interior of the chaser, staunchly ignoring the tall, dark-suited man standing over her. The gaping chest wound from his appearance at Typhon's declaration remains, dripping phantom blood to the ground as gore slicks the left side of his jacket. Pinkerton the Eye-Pod sits nearby, chirping angrily up at him, planted firmly between the image and Vanity.]

"Sitting here playing with toys, pretending you haven't given up. The company's probably ash by now thanks to you."

[Vanity twists in a connection with a little more force than necessary.]

"At least when One-One and Nine-Fourteen stabbed me in the back they at least didn't pretend they were being anything but cowardly failures-"

SHUT-!

[Voice cracking, Vanity spins, hurling the wrench she's holding through the hallucination's head. He barely flickers, the tool clanging loudly on the opposite wall as Pinkerton bleeps in distress, spinning in small circles at Vanity's feet.]

[Later in the day, Vanity is making her way around the island outside, tailed by one lumbering loaf of a gopher.]

Go away. Shoo. Do I look like that metal lunatic?

"You made a friend, V! I'm impressed."

"It's- it's a little cute?"

[One gopher and two girls with brightly colored hair, whom Vanity is doing her level best to ignore.]

Go away- go- hang on.

[Vanity pulls out a small apple from inside her capelet, waving it enough to catch Gamma's attention, and then whipping it past the gopher a short distance away. He turns, loping after it at a fast waddle. Vanity sags in a bit of relief.]

"V, you just fed it. It's gonna follow you forever now."

[There's a short beat as Vanity stares, dead-eyed, at Gamma happily noshing on the apple. A lone Zubat flits down, tentatively joining him for his snack.]

"Two for one deal, you like those right?"

AUGH-!

[In the evening, Vanity has made her way to the library, where she is sullenly looking through a large tome on animal husbandry.]

FUCKIN' Omega-

cw for dissociation, trauma, emeto, hallucinations

[treebornekettlegirl]

[Throughout the early hours of the day, one will see Ranma relaxing in the Elysian Fields... Okay, calling 'taking a dip in the pool and sitting there like a jumbo-sized jacuzzi' relaxing may be an exaggeration. Not helped by the fact Ranma looks like she hadn't slept a wink in a week. Hallucinations and nightmares don't pair nicely together. But it's keeping the sea of tuxedos, torties, calicos, and more cats surrounding the pools. Cats hate water, they can't touch me, they can't get me, they can't hurt me.

The cats make no move to enter the waters or approach the pigtailed girl hugging her knees staring off to space trembling like a tree during a wind storm. They can't physically hurt her... Torment her by joining together in a choir of caterwauls, in hunger, in malice, in need, that they can do with no problemos. Ranma slams her hands over her ears and close her lids tight. But she knows already its pointless to do that. She can still hear them every time no matter how hard she plugs her ears or if she screams until her throat's raw to drown them out. They're still there, they're still on the attack, they're still angry and starving and she can't make them stop!

Pain flares up all over her body. Unbearable, stinging pain that wants to rend her flesh open and taint the clear waters red. The fetor of irony scent blood carries, the spicy salty meats and the repugnant malodor of cat fur invades her nose nearly making her retch her guts out. Tears make ripples in the pool as Ranma clutches her head, doing her darnedest to block them out!

But she can't. She never can. Right then and there, she's ten again back in the pit. Being flung into the lion's den over and over and over and over and over to learn the stupid technique or to get over being a wuss over pussy-cats. They keep coming, their horrible eyes penetrating through the dark to find her, their ear-splitting yowls and hissing, their claws and teeth all over her tearing in her.

Make them stop. Make them stop, please she can't do this it hurts please somebody save me pop please stop help me help me help me help me he]

[The world falls into complete darkness. And with it, so does Ranma sinking into darkness and the water.]

[... Later in the day, there'll be a thunderous crackling of walls crumbling. Much like Omega's explosive introduction during their first meeting, new entranceways would be created. Those who go to inspect (or happen to be in a room the receives a fresh hole) will find A.) rather than being smashed the walls were slashed cleanly like diced veggies, B.) nine massive apparitions of cats floating around evading some pink blur streaking between them...

C.) That pink blur taking a moment to cease bouncing around, carving striations in the ground with their stoppage. The identity wasn't hard to deduce, there's so few pink-haired gods who can move like that that wouldn't bat an eye.


Their behavior on the other hand, that might. The fact that they're actually trying to fight the cats instead of fleeing with their tail tucked between their leg is unnatural for Ranma, much less how she's actually fighting them. Bent over onto all fours, fists balled in a facsimile of paws, bearing her teeth at the ghostly felines and hissing like a feral cat. Clawing into the ground with a pissed off 'Mrrrw... '

Zero primal fear can be found in her eyes like there normally would be. It was different, like a cornered wild animal snapping back, clawing for survival.]

[stringup]

[ On Wednesday morning, Velvet can be found at the stables, since she's taken up a new morning routine in Ferdinand's absence. This time, however, there's a small girl watching her as she brings the horses out to graze. The girl is short enough that she has to stand on part of the paddock fencing to comfortably look over it, little feet fitting between the slats so she can rest her arms on the fence. Her hair is gray, but she looks somewhat similar to Velvet; a bit like a much younger, more cheerful version of her. ]

Sis, can I ride the ponies? [ When Velvet doesn't answer her, apparently trying to ignore her, the girl pouts. ] Sis! Siiis! Siiiiiiis!

[ Velvet lets out a long sigh, like she knows she cannot win against this baby. ] It's not like you or I know how to ride one.

But you're taking them out to play! …Except that one.

Ah, that one's Liora.

…Why does she look so scary…

Dragons, I wish I knew.

[ Once she's done with that, she makes her way up and outside to the arena. It's taken this long for her to summon the wherewithal to come back so she can salvage Ochain, Ferdinand's shield. She picks it up with a small sound of exertion, then takes a look to assess the damage that the duel with Omega left it with.

A slightly shorter teenager with gray hair is peering over her shoulder, though that means he has to stand on the balls of his feet to get a good view. ]

Don't tell me you're taking this junk.

[ Velvet stiffens. She takes a deep breath, and exhales. ] Funny that you're calling a sacred artifact "junk".

[ His face goes through a bit of a journey, from surprise to internally calculating theoretical profit to his face scrunching up with apprehension. ] You know the toffs will want it the moment they so much as smell a whiff, right?

Heh. Well, good news. Not a problem here.

[ And as she goes about her day, you might see either one or both of those figures following her around; the teenage boy in particular loves to provide unsolicited commentary.

Maybe you'll see her doing her absolute best to walk away very from a tall, eerily beautiful woman draped in cascading sable and cerulean robes, as well as dangling jewels that may remind you of streams or tears. She doesn't say anything (yet), but when she's around, she is always watching Velvet, and never seems to be far away enough from her.

Or worse yet, maybe you'll see one of the deceased accompanying Velvet. ]

Thursday

[letsplayamod]