theafflicted | 04 - week four

04 - week four

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)

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[... has anyone in media ever said that line with any good intentions?! Idia takes a step back.]

E- eh?! [The general unease wasn't enough to trip his panic sensors but, well, the active threat may just do it.]

N- No thanks! I don't taste good! All skin and bone you know! With a nasty core!

[srry hien who told him to think better of himself this still comes way too naturally]

[ With that, the monster shrieks and immediately rushes over to Idia in an attempt to bite him with its gaping shadowy maws. Think fast!! ]

[IT'S A JUMPSCARE, GAMERS.]

[Or at least that's how Idia feels when something that had been standing still suddenly lets out a loud sound and starts rushing him. Now, in matters of physical prowess his stats were... bad. Still, he felt his own magic securely back inside his body and that was something he could use.]

[He gestures down at the ground in front of him and]

[fwoom a wall of fire (standard, reddish, not like his hair) shoots up like a barrier]

[ The void is a little weird as in you have something to stand on but the ground isn't really dictated as, well, solid ground. Which is why when Idia gestures down at the ground in front of him, it's as if Idia is standing at an invisible mini cliff, and the fire barrier shoots up from five feet below him. Not that it seems to matter, since the monster looks like it's... slurping up the fire. If the fire is endless, there will just be endless fire slurping. ]

[Really, he just wanted a barrier between himself and the being, with "the ground" being less required than just "a full surface"...]

[... but he watches, instead, as the creature starts devouring the magic he's conjured. His breath catches in his throat. How- how did this make him feel? The fear was beginning to get stained with other emotions, other snippets of thoughts and feelings.]

[Something with an endless hunger, that would eat and eat until it ran out. Magic wasn't endless.]

[And, yet, he keeps conjuring the flame, feeding it, looking carefully to try and find some trace of anything that wasn't endless hunger in it.]

[ It's unfortunate, because the purpose of the monster's existence is to eat. And it will only eat and eat and eat... there's something about its hunger that will even make it feed upon worlds. This is why no one wants to even see this monster—

It's had enough of slurping and tries to devour the wall of fire in one go. ]

[The monster dives foward, swallowing the flame all the way to its origin and thus stopping any more magic from fueling it. Idia makes a sharp sound as he wasn't quite expecting that. With that thing swallowing the magic he was also- closer-]

[Idia's eyes look back to where he last saw the man. Questions echo in his head that he doesn't have the time or energy to allocate and try to answer.]

[but he doesn't want to just give up and be eaten]

[The next magic he calls are spheres of cosmic energy- not weak to anything nor strong against anything- he's using them to try and buy some amount of time.]

[ Cosmic energy? A new flavor! The monster eats the spheres one at a time, but it seems to be taking its time with it as if to savor the taste. Yummy.

Meanwhile, that man the monster was with catches up to them, but he was just simply walking.

"You're giving it treats. How cute." ]

[Okay, okay, that seemed to slow it down slightly, and he's still got two kinds of magic before he would have to repeat and it has the chance of getting old. Until then he has to try and? Talk? Get information from? Exhaust his other options?]

Who are you? Y- You're not- ... [if he asks "Are you Hien?" and doesn't like the answer he's going to die quicker, he feels!!]

Why isn't it trying to eat you?!

[ "Because he's mine. I made him like this. Isn't he just so cute, being so hungry like that... But you really want to know who I am? I'm the concept of Destruction, like how this monster--"

He lightly pats the monster somehow. It just keeps eating the cosmic energy.

"--is the concept of Self. Funny, isn't it? The one who is supposed to be representing "self" has the form of a monster." ]

["Can we drop the metaphors and symbolism?! I'm going to be eaten here!" is about all that's running through his head at this point. He's keeping the magic up but there's also a less familiar feeling creeping up his throat. High use of magic. Heightened emotional state. Blot. At a certain point, it could make him go out of control.]

[If he weren't the test subject, he might find a morbid fascination in it. What would win, the eldritch Self or a mage in full Overblot?]

Shouldn't "self" just belong to them"self"!?

[... "Destruction" being a creepy-lovey-asshole character totally tracks, though!]

[ "It's mine."

The man says simply as if that answers everything and looks over to the monster with something like mocking fondness in his eyes.

"Aren't you mine, Hien?"

The monster stops eating the cosmic energy and screams at the man. Does it agree? Not agree? It's hard to tell... ]

["Hien."]

[One name was all it took for his heart to crawl itself out of the sludge of blot that was accumulating. The Hien he knew was kind, to him at least, but there was always that doubt in his heart. The people he cared for- what if, behind his back, they were cruel and heartless? Compared to that, a monster with endless hunger? He could accept that.]

[So, knowing who he favored in this pairing,]

[It's not like he expects this version of Hien to be kind to him. That's too presumptuous. He just does the thing that normally happens when he talks with Hien, he lets his guard down, and he- tries.]

M- M'lord Static, Hien- he doesn't belong to anyone!

[A redirection and sharp cut of his hand through the air. The magic he was using to keep Hien distracted forms itself into sharp icicles carried by cold wind and he's aiming for the cruel man.]

[ Hien being cruel and heartless unfortunately tracks, but his kindness to Idia and other people are real. This is why the monster just watches the man get pierced with sharp icicles. He didn't even bother to dodge. The cruel man, meanwhile, laughs and yanks them out of his body.

"Would you like these back, dear?"

He throws the bloody icicles back at Idia without waiting for an answer. However, the monster has had enough of this dude, so it proceeds to bite the man's head off, making the body collapse. ]

[Usually, magic ends up crashing against the body of a mage and disaapating. Something is different here, though. Was it a manipulation of magic? Of emotion? Was it that he wanted to draw blood?]

[He isn't expecting it, which is why when the icicles come back he can't quite counter it. He's used to it hurting, magic duels always hurt some amount, but he's not used to the kind of sharp, shocking pain. An icicle stabs deep into his own shoulder and he grits his teeth through a shocked-out sound of pain. When he opens his mouth again, a black ink-like substance starts to drip out.]

[Maybe it's the shock. Maybe it's the over-use of magic. Maybe it's the surreal nature of this whole place. He doesn't feel scared. He's grinning, even as Blot dribbles down his chin.]

H- Hah! Take that! Game over!

[Maybe he was just delighted to see that guy's head go off, his body crumple, and Hien to be the one to do it.]

[ Honestly, the monster seems pretty satisfied that the man is dead too. It looks over at Idia though, quietly...

Unfortunately, Idia isn't spared from the monster's hunger despite the man being gone, so the monster opens its maws wide and tries to devour Idia whole. Painless. ]

[Those precious seconds after the man falls have Idia breathing heavily, wiping the black dribble off his chin with his sleeve. When he looks back and sees the fact they're now making eye contact,]

[well,]

[It's not like he doesn't expect it. Now, though, knowing it's some version of Hien, even if it's a Hien he's never met before, he feels more at peace with it. He had been trying to take baby steps. The Hien he knew told him that he should be proud. He could accomplish things. But growth takes time. Looking down the face of what might be death, what might be complete unexistence, in his exhausted state, he stops to think:]

[At least it's you.]

[The darkness is smothered by a very different kind of darkness, after a stretch of the jaws that only further cements how inhuman the creature was, and any light from that blue fire becomes entirely eclipsed.]

[Fueheh... well, there's still a rotten core, the blot inside him, a substance that wanted to feed on his magic and absorb his emotions, something wholly different from what he cast, but I still hope you enjoy.]

[ The monster enjoys it very much. As Idia feels like he'll be falling further down into the void, he might hear:

Now you'll always be with me.

After that, Idia will wake up outside where the portal once was (now gone), and feeling very sore. Time to get some rest... ]

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04 - week four

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