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

[accursedtwin]

But I can't do anything else.

[ He knows it's a wasted effort, but he still has to try. ]

I need to get Fai and I out of here, so we can help the people of Valeria or go to another country.

[ There's so much he needs to do, so much he has to do. He can't give up when he has no other way out. ]

[sicklysweet]

[Needs to get who out of here????????????? Hello???????????????????????]

...I can help you. And Fai.

[If this kid isn't Fai then who is Fai??? Is Fai - did Fai steal Fai's identity???]

I'm a very powerful wizard, and a place like this can't stop me.

[he doesn't understand what's going on but he wants out]

[accursedtwin]

[ :) ]

...Magic isn't supposed to work here.

[ But alas, Owen is from a different world, so the rules of this one don't necessarily apply to him. Still, a chance to escape is a chance to escape, even if it's from strange powerful wizard.

He looks away from Owen and up at the seemingly endless walls of the tower. ]

Are you sure you want to help us? Bad things might happen to you if you do.

[sicklysweet]

[:worry:]

I don't do a lot of things I'm supposed to do.

[He's full of shit, but there's - there's something itching under his skin, seeing Fai - not Fai - like this.]

And I don't care if bad things happen to me.

[He is, after all, a bad thing himself.]

So, where's Fai? I'll get you both out of here.

cw corpse mention

[accursedtwin]

He's at the top.

[ Way, way up there.

But when he looks up, someone from high up above tosses a body over the top. Down they tumble, until they hit the ground. Owen might be able to sense the strange magic in this place, so it might not be a shock when the body isn't mangled by hitting the ground. Instead, the body is in the exact same state they were in when they entered the threshold of the tower.

A rolled up scroll falls from the person's hand and rolls along the ground until it bumps against Owen's foot.

All the boy does is stare at it, afraid to pick it up. ]

...

[sicklysweet]

So we'll head up there.

[Why bend down to pick things up when you have ✨magic✨?

Owen lifts the scroll, unrolling it to read whatever's honest. He doubts it's anything good, judging by the look on the Fai-adjacent boy's face.]

cw mass death

[accursedtwin]

[ He's still too afraid to read what it might say, as he knows that a lot of the people that have fallen in here lately are not the guilty. They shouldn't be here.

He's worried the scroll might have something to say about that.

The scroll reads: ]

The Valerian sovereign, in his fits of insanity, put innocent people to death. And now no one can stop him. We beg for foreign armies to help us. The blame for all of this lies on the twin princes born to our country. It is all the fault of the unhappy twins.

[sicklysweet]

[Well. If Owen had thought that the way people treated wizard in Fai's sounded familiar to how they do in his, that just cements it. A prince, huh... They even both have such bright blue eyes.

It's also kind of real fuckin' annoying that people keep blaming wizards for everything when it's humans who start shit. But now isn't the time for that, so he tosses the scroll aside and it bursts into flames, leaving behind nothing but ash. His broom appears beside him, hovering low enough for the boy to climb onto it.]

A very kind, smart wizard once told me that wizards and witches who fly on brooms are just a thing of stories.

[He sits sidesaddle on the broom near the bristles, waiting for the boy.]

So you can think of me as one of those storybook wizards. Get on so we can get out of here.

[The sooner they get out of here the better, honestly.]

[accursedtwin]

[ A broom... those are real? He'd read about them in a couple of storybooks... while he was still permitted to read those. ]

A-alright...

[ Very carefully, he gets onto the broom. It seems like he's scared of something bad happening at any moment, but he's determined to leave. ]

[sicklysweet]

[Well, it definitely feels real, even it it might not look like how he would imagine, with the crooked metal handle and the chains and crystals hanging from it.]

Hold on tight.

[And that's all the warning he'll get before Owen is taking off, flying to the top of the tower. If there's a moment where it seems like the boy is losing his grip or might slide off, there's a magical tug to keep him on the broom.]

[accursedtwin]

[ Fai does his best to hold on tight, despite how strange the broom is.

Up, up, up they go until suddenly something feels like it gives and Owen will find himself right back at the bottom of the tower. ]

...What happened?

[ Is it his fault? ]

[sicklysweet]

Were I to guess... there's someone who really doesn't want you to leave.

[Annoying. Very, very annoying.

His eyes narrow, as he looks up and squints, searching for any sign of a spell that could be keeping them down here.]

But they decided to leave you with some hope.

[accursedtwin]

Isn't that worse? Giving me hope that I'll be able to leave...

[ He wraps his arms around himself. ]

Only to take it away.

[ He looks up at Owen, his eyes misty with tears. ]

I'm sorry that you can't leave either.

[sicklysweet]

Of course it's worse - whoever would put you down here wants you to suffer.

[It's not a claim he can make with any sort of definite proof, but. It's too familiar to be anything else.

He hesitates, the tears making him uncomfortable in a way he can't explain, but he shoves that feeling aside and awkwardly reaches out to pat Fai's head.]

You don't need to be sorry to me. It's not your fault.

[The chill of Owen's hand is only somewhat mitigated by the gloves he wears, so he hopes that doesn't bother the boy too much.]

[accursedtwin]

[ owen being nice is so off-putting

He tries not to shrink away from the hand on his head. ]

But it is. Our curse is probably the reason why you can't escape. That message you read... it probably said something about it, didn't it?

[sicklysweet]

[it is and he doesn’t like it]

Did you curse yourself?

[His voice is dry, almost amused.]

That would be very impressive.

[accursedtwin]

...Does being born count as cursing ourselves?

[ He thinks that it does, in a way. ]

[sicklysweet]

No. That’s stupid.

[totally nailing this comforting thing, i’m sure]

You didn’t choose to be born or the circumstances of your birth.

[accursedtwin]

[ totally ]

I... I guess not. But neither of us offered to die either. That's why we were sent here.

[sicklysweet]

Why would you? Why should you die? You're children. You haven't done anything wrong and there's nothing cursed about having magic.

[man he hopes adult fai doesn't remember this conversation]

They're just heartless cowards.

[accursedtwin]

[ don't worry owen, he will remember :) ]

But... we're omens. Twins are a bad sign for the country.

[ So many bad things have happened since they were born, so it must be true. ]

Having magic... it makes us dangerous, especially when we're together.

[sicklysweet]

[no!!!!!!!!]

Really? I've never heard of that before.

[Considering the closest thing the Northern country has to authority are twin brothers, that sounds incredibly fake.]

Magic is only dangerous when you don't know how to use it. Locking you up isn't going to make it any less dangerous. You need to learn, not suffer.

[accursedtwin]

[ Does he? He isn't sure about that. Wouldn't learning magic just make him more dangerous...?

There's one thing he's stuck on, however. ]

You've never heard about twins being bad...? But that's been believed here since the start of the country...

[sicklysweet]

I haven't. I'm not from here, remember?

[also, like. he's old.]

Where I'm from there's nothing wrong with twins, or having magic.

[accursedtwin]

So it's okay in other places...

[ That gives him some renewed hope, at least. ]

If we can get to another place, maybe it will all be okay...