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

[selfconcept]

Tell me what's happening here. Is this a prison for children?

[ He can sort of feel the suffering and it kinda sucks. ]

csa cw

[imitationsoul]

[ Miach hesitates. Nobody has ever asked her to describe what this is - why would they? The only people she's spoken to since coming here where the other miserable children and the people inflicting all of this on her. There was no reason to express their misery in words an outsider could understand.

Now she's looking inside her brain for terms she may have heard, something that can describe what is happening when her own words fail her. ]

It's a... comfort station?

[selfconcept]

[ ...

Hien closes his eyes for a second before reopening them. ]

I see.

[ He wishes he didn't. ]

Can you gather the children to the furthest corner of the room? Don't squish each other too much.

[ Hien turns to go over to the door and waits Miach to do the thing he requested her to do. If she doesn't, well, he'll stare at her. ]

[imitationsoul]

[ Can she? Miach isn't sure either, but she at least gets out of bed in order to make an attempt.

There is nothing to say that this unsettling man with the strange powers is a good person, but it is hard for things to get any worse than they are now. Miach wants to take a chance on it, this impulse of the now.

She nudges and whispers to the others, though not all of them seem to even speak her language. It does not seem like Miach, not even among the oldest here, holds a lot of sway over her fellow captives - but in the end, all of them feel similarly to her.

It can't get much worse. And the soldiers may find this wizard anytime. ]

[selfconcept]

[ Miach made an attempt, which is good. That's all he needs right now. When the last kid is away from the vantage point of the door, Hien kicks the door open. Steel? Diamond? Doesn't matter. This wizard's STR stat is OP in comparison to some rocks.

Everyone on the other side of the door will die. He tries to make it as quiet as possible so that the children aren't more traumatized, so a quick death by wires is sufficient for all of them. If more come, he'll kill them all too.

Die.

Worthless scums of the earth—

It's quiet. ]

[imitationsoul]

[ ... it's quiet.

It's the second time in her short life that Miach has felt completely incapable of comprehending what was happening to her. Being brought here was one thing, with all the fire and the blood, and sensations she had never experienced before.

And now... the silence. The silence where there always had been a shuffle, a constant noise of threat at the back of her head. Miach doesn't dare to breathe. Neither do any of the other kids.

It's quiet for a long, long moment. ]

... who... are you?

[selfconcept]

[ Hien isn't here to play hero, but he really didn't like the situation and his favored choice of solution is violence. But he does have standards, like... trying not to be so bloody in front of children. So after he gets most blood off himself as possible, and walks back into the room. ]

I'm just a passerby. Let's get you kids out of here. Maybe we should head to somewhere like a public bath or a bunch of showers. What do you kids think?

[ He tries not to look so imposing, but. He is what he is. He can't help it. ]

[imitationsoul]

[ Miach doesn't know a whole lot about the world outside, but she is fairly sure that this is not what a passerby is meant to be doing.

For a long moment, the group of kids is wide-eyed and silent. Then one of them starts crying. And once the ice is broken on tears, another joins in swiftly.

Miach, for her part, does not seem inclined to shed tears. Instead she takes a deep breath and nods. ]

Bath.

[ She doesn't think she'll feel any less filthy about it, but it'd be nice and warm ideally. ]

[selfconcept]

[ Well. He's glad at least Miach isn't crying. Or maybe he shouldn't be. Hm.

Either way, he tries to comfort the kid by gently patting on their heads. He really hopes this doesn't backfire even though he knows it very much could. He just wants to make them feel better... ]

Alright. Let's go for a bath.

[ But instead of leaving, Hien crouches a little. ]

Everyone, hold hands and gather in a circle. We're gonna go take a long, nice bath, but to take you there, we gotta do this first.

[ He tries to say that in other languages so that the other children might know, but he doesn't know what they all speak... hopefully he gets some of them. ]