04 - week four

[afflictionmods]

WEEK FOUR

Saturday comes to a close, and it’s time for some rest and recovery. Perhaps the TLC you deserve will come this week, or perhaps the nightmare will continue. It’s hard to say with things being so strange around you, from Wei Wuxian’s disappearance to the sudden addition of objects and places and creatures from your homes. Who knows what this week will bring? Nothing ordinary, that’s for sure.

You wake up on Sunday to an increase in those little glimpses you saw yesterday. What were snippets of songs, locations that might’ve seemed familiar, and creatures that were dormant, are now all alive and whole. When you go to the karaoke bar, the songs you once knew are there. Monsters and animals are alive and sentient. New business are abound. Vehicles are operable, and perhaps some of your old belongings are back, too.

However, some of these things aren’t even things that should exist outside of your dreams. They may be far too strange and unusual to be real, or just things you don't remember ever seeing. The only thing you remember about these things in particular is that they were, quite literally, in your dreams this week.

That being said, every few hours, all of these things from your homes and dreams fade out and get replaced by new sounds, places, beasts….only to maybe come back again at another time.

Well. At least there's one constant here: You’ve got a handful of new locations to look at, with the fog having spread once more, and they aren't going anywhere. There aren’t as many new places that are native to Estelline this time around, but that may be for the best, considering everything going on.


SETTING TRACKER

SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY

NEWSPAPER SUBMISSIONS + EDITION #1

SAGE / FLORENCE / LORELEI

MEM SHARE DETAILS

OOC NOTE

OOC: Details on this week can be found here!

Also, we have a lot of participants for the news activity from last week. Neat! Everyone who participated in some capacity will have a small polaroid camera delivered to their doorstep. There's limited film, though - 10 photos per camera. It doesn't seem like there's any extra film at this time, either.

Finally, there will not be any weekly tasks this week. You guys are going to be busy with memshare and dreamscape stuff; instead, enjoy the Estelline University Newspaper!

FULL NAV

(CODE)

Comments

[cloudalike]

[ With how hectic Saturday must have been for everyone, it was probably easy to miss the fact that Chongyun wasn't there for any of it. ]

My apologies for withholding this information until now. On Saturday, I was tasked by Lorelei to look for traces of the people - or the spirits you might have seen in the Orbs. Ah - to clarify, I don't mean the ones that were possessing people. I refer to the lost souls that were wandering around. In any case, Lorelai wanted to know if the people in the Orbs were dead or alive, and how they wound up stuck there.

Indeed, Lorelai and I located some spirits by the Mall. [ He's not going to describe how they did it, but a popcorn machine might have been abused for the cause. ] While she was distracted, I was able to communicate with one of them. As you may or may not know, communicating with spirits can be a vague affair, so I do not have details or explanation. What I received was closer to a summary before the spirit was gone.

They were a college student from Estelline University; unlike us, they are from this world. Unlike us, they did not have a partner they were linked to - and they seemed quite confused when I asked. However, I can confirm that they did not have the mark.

[ Here, he frowns. ]

But... they did recognize it because some of the others who are trapped also had it. [ Have it? Who knows! ] When they first saw people with the mark, those people were... out of control and hurting one another. There was this dark energy that appeared around the marked people and the environment started to worsen around them.

At a certain point, the college student was pulled into the Orb, and... unfortunately, they failed to complete the ghost challenge in the same manner that we did. The ghost - or ghoul - took over them completely, and they were fatally wounded by another person there.

One last note: they are not sure if everyone in the Orbs is actually dead.

[ And that's all he has.

Not included: how excited he was to talk to a ghost for the first time! How proud he is that he was able to do all this without the use of his Cryo Vision, or his congenital positivity. All of this, he'll tell Xingqiu and others privately. ]

[partymagician]

[ Ah, he had been wondering where Chongyun was. This certainly explains it. ]

So we might be able to save some of them?

[ He hopes... that's what he wants.

But also— ]

Dark energy being associated with our marks is a little concerning.

[cloudalike]

I think so. [ They're not his people, but... ] I don't think we can turn a blind eye to this. If we have the ability to help them, then there is no reason to forgo human decency.

[ Hearing about the dark energy worried him, too. ]

I haven't felt the urge to hurt any of you, however. In fact, it's the complete opposite. I wonder what that says about our marks in comparison to - the original marks? They don't seem to be commensurate with each other.

[ Yet? ]

[partymagician]

[ Fai nods. Chongyun is such a good kid… ]

I don’t know that they are either. Much like you, I haven’t felt anything like that.

[ He hums thoughtfully. ]

I wonder what the difference is.

[fabulation]

Excellent work, Chongyun.

[ Though he's thinking about all of that, because boy. ]

It seems like there was potentially some kind of outside interference worsening their emotions, then. I wonder where exactly the source of this 'dark energy' is, though...

[cloudalike]

[ Normally, he would say AN EVIL SPIRIT of course, but his experience here has taught him there's more to this place that some measly spirit. ]

It's a possibility that the source did not originate from this world. If whatever is happening here can pull us from our worlds, then it is not unexpected that whatever is causing this could have originally traveled worlds.

[fabulation]

[ ...though, maybe a 'group of evil spirits' would not be too far from the mark. But then again when you start to head down that direction, powerful demons might be considerations too.

Too many possible factors, still too little information. ]

An interesting thought.

I hadn't considered something like that before. But, seeing as the orbs can pull people into different 'places' and 'worlds', I'm starting to think that it can be more likely than something that's originally come from this world.

[ Nnnnot that it couldn't have, but this place seems to have normal vibes. Or at least that is the gist that he got what this world used to be like. ]