theafflicted | 05 - week five

05 - week five

WEEK FIVE

Come Sunday morning, the portals around Estelline fade away, but not all of the oddities hanging around disappear so quickly. The recreations of your dreams and memories are still around, ever changing and shifting. Whatever it is that brought these things here hasn’t ended, not yet.

You don’t have time to worry about all of that, though, even if you know you should exercise caution once two of you found yourselves on the bad end of a monster’s claws. The course still isn’t over, though, even if the portals changed lesson plans. Everything continues on, with new places to explore as the fog pushes back once again. This week still feels a little more like what you’re familiar with, though, after Saturday’s lack of lessons.

...For now.

SETTING TRACKER

SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY

SAGE / FLORENCE / LORELEI

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Due Saturday at 8pm EST

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ hello hello,

time is fake so i'm not sure where in the timeline this will end up in relation to the townhall but sabo is here to poke his nose into places that may or may not prove to be fruitful. aka, he's going to be checking the mail trucks in the parking lot. he has an interest with the package and letters first and foremost, and because this isn't a terrifying image, but sabo will have his axe with him as a means to get into things if needed.

so, can he make out where those package/letters are being addressed to? ]

[He sure can axe his way into the mail trucks!

The majority of the mail is addressed to people living in Estelline, though each has a handful of outgoing mail they’ve picked up on their routes going to cities Sabo won’t recognize.

He can at least recognize there are some familiar(ish) streets on the addresses, though! There’s some mail going to the university, the recently discovered apartment complex, and Camellia, though a lot of it seems like personal correspondence. There’s also one truck just filled in boxes destined for the museum.]

[ closes my eyes; he will steal some of that mail that are going to the apartments and opening the mail addressed to Camellia. do those prove to be particularly fruitful or do they seem to be just personal letters?

the next order of business is definitely to take a whack at the boxes that are destined for the museum. what's in the box!!!! ]

[mr. sabo that's a crime

A lot of the letters do seem to be personal in nature - and a lot of them originate from cities beyond Estelline. A lot of them can be easily disregarded, but more than a few of them seem to be asking if there's something that can stop the impact of emotions on the environment. Several of the letters seem simply curious, but some of them are... very, very concerned.

The boxes for the museum just seems to be someone's last minute, desperate order for merchandise to stick in the gift shop. Whoops!]

[ does it look like sabo cares if it's a crime? (he's a criminal, sorry everyone.)

and he's definitely going to be taking a closer look at the letters mentioning that something. do any of the letters actually name that something? any mentioning of a dr. juniper as well in these letters? also!! what are the dates of these letters?

as for the merch... what do we have here. are there cute things? you know, stuff that he can take as a gift for someone. idk. don't look at me too closely. happy pride!!! ]

[They all have mail processing dates that are at least a month old, but a few seem to be quite a few weeks older than that. Those tend to be the ones that are from outside of the city, so that’s likely a case of mailing time and not some big conspiracy to suppress the mail.

A lot of people refer to this phenomenon as environmental empathy, and there are a few anecdotes in the letters on various natural disasters people are claiming were caused by this environmental empathy. Some of those seem to be quite recent, but some seem like disasters that took place years ago that people are afraid might happen again. There are a handful of mentions of Dr. Juniper and a few letters that are addressed to him specifically, but the majority of the mail seems to be addressed to Camellia at large.

And, sure. There are some cute dinosaur plushes in these boxes. Happy pride!!!]

[ at least we're consistent about when bad things are happening... those poor letters not being sent out.

but hmm. interesting. are they particular natural disasters ie. storms, floods, tornadoes etc etc. either way, those are definitely going to go inside of his coat pocket because it's good to have material to reference later. and i guess sabo is fine with stealing people's mail as a general whole. do the letters addressing dr. juniper mention anything noteworthy or do they kind of echo the same sentiments already covered?

also cute; he will take a stuffed dino. maybe a brontosaurus or something... and since i forgot to ask earlier but is there anything else noteworthy inside of the mail trucks? some sort of identification or the like? ]

[can we get a g in the chat for the mail system

There's definitely a mix of disasters reported, from avalanches and earthquakes to hurricanes and forest fires! Basically anything you could imagine, because someone's even complaining about a sinkhole. The letters to Dr. Juniper are saying much the same as the rest, though they seem a bit more simp-y.

There's not much in the way of identification - they have license plates, sure, but they're just. Trucks. Maybe he could snoop for a VIN, but that wouldn't mean much, and there's nothing to identify the drivers in them either.]

[ softly presses "g".

bruh. all of these simps for dr. juniper... i suppose that's to be expected given things but at the same time—shakes head. nevertheless, letters will be pocketed and the dino friend will be kept somewhere. i'm not sure. sabo only has many pockets.

if we're done with the parking lot, he's going to be going inside of the post office to generally get an idea of how "normal" things would have looked here at a glance. any signs of people in a hurry to get things out or does it kind of look like things were business as usual last? and per the course... sabo is here for Dates.

(also to the wall of PO boxes and the backroom, but we'll get there in a bit.) ]

[Listen, Sabo… If you met the guy, you would know!! Maybe.

Maybe not.

Also the post office seems to be pretty business as usual! No signs of distress or anything like that, just people going about their business and sending and receiving mail! The dates on everything seem to align with everything they’ve found so far. A few weeks before arrival, everything just… stops.]

[ looks at the person writing the replies through. would sabo really simp for him? would he....

but huh. okay. this is something to make a mental note of and he's going to file it away for safe keeping. (randomly is there like a gift box he can swipe for the dino toy he stole from the mail truck?) though are there any kind of identifiers around the front like at the register for anything significant? you know, like the flyer he found or such? maybe keys that go somewhere? ]

[thinks.........

He can find a plain brown box, which might have to be good enough for now.

There's advertisements for new stamp designs, but if he looks around he'll see there's a handmade notice at the register reading:

Don't go out at night! :(

It's a bit wrinkled, but it's been taped down to the counter pretty securely.]

[ and this is why ace and sabo aren't together still.

a brown box is definitely going to be good enough because it can be multipurpose in regards to its use. so now he has a box and an axe. the man is here for business!!! though that also said, he's going to frown at that note. hmm. is there anything else by the note or anything like that?

if nothing else, he's going to keep going deeper into the post office to those po boxes. which...i'm almost certain aren't going to come open easily, huh? ]

[OWEN DIED FOR THEM!!!!!!!!! i wonder if it's obvious coco is clearly the one running this invest now

There's nothing directly next to the note, but as he moves onto the PO boxes (with his axe that will surely not be relevant in the next tag or anything...) he will find what seems to be a flyer for... a party? Someone seems to be throwing a party (or... was planning on throwing a party, because this notice seems to be from a month ago) to "orb watch and chill".

So, you know, people will always be people. The address seems to lead to the nearby apartment complex.

Anyways, yeah. The PO boxes won't go down without a fight (or keys).]

[ CLEARLY.

the axe will definitely be important in this tag because unless he could have found keys behind the register then he's most certainly going to seek violence against the po boxes which may or may not require the location page to be updated to reflect all of the damage that sabo is doing.

but "orb watch and chill"?? ??? what are the details about what to expect?? looks like? are there pictures?? but yes. sabo is about to fight these po boxes if there's nothing else to make note of are there any special boxes? ones that look particularly full? ]

[It's advertised as something of a cookout or block party in the complex's courtyard, so people can hang out, drink, eat, yadda yadda. Someone is not taking the note from the register seriously, clearly, because it was supposed to happen at night.

And the keys weren't kept at the register, nope, so I guess he's just... once again causing a location update... There's a few that look reasonably full, but of course it's hard to tell what's in them from the outside.]

[ huh.

okay... well. i guess...that's something that people do here? it shouldn't be that surprising since there are all kinds of people in this world(s). but okay, if there aren't any kind of po box that sabo should be focusing on, then he was going to be hacking at the first one that he sees. careful hacking. probably some prying too since that's the sensible thing to do.

get ready to update location page with the amount of damage that is being done.

]

[rest in peace post office, we hardly knew ye...

It opens, though, because, like. What's a PO box gonna do against an axe? Absolutely nothing.

Inside is... mail, unsurprisingly. Perhaps also unsurprisingly, it just seems to be junk. He's welcome to go to town on the rest, but he's unlikely to find anything all that different from what was in the trucks outside.

Except there's no cute dinos this time.]

[ TRAGIC. not even dinos for a prize and sorry for everyone's mail and po boxes... hopefully this won't come back to bite him in the ass too badly whenever people come back(?) though if it does, sabo will claim to have a good reason for this wide scale vandalism.

though if there's nothing new that can be found in the the po boxes or notable, he's going to go to the back to check to see how things are back here. just to be thorough even if the mental image of this might be honestly frightening at this point. also is there not any kind of employee breakroom? ]

[We'll just have to wait and see...

There's more mail, of course, waiting to be sorted and sent off to its destination. There's not a breakroom, either, but there is a little table and counter in the back corner with a coffee pot, microwave, and minifridge and a couple chairs for people to take their breaks at.

Mail is mail, though he will be able to find a stack of flyers meant to be mailed out. At a glance, he'll be able to see it has Camellia's logo on it. Does he want to take a closer look?]

[ sweats.

and well, glad to know that even if there isn't a breakroom for the employees who were here, there is a rest area of sorts for them. he will definitely go take a closer look at that logo!!! but first, he will want to sneak a peek of what's inside of the minifridge.

look. this is important to him. maybe.

once that is said any done he will look over the mail being mail and briefly giving them once over before honing in on that logo and these flyers. do they advertise the same thing that he found in the trashcan a few weeks back? ]

[Is Sabo really sure he wants to open a minifridge that's been abandoned for weeks.............................................

Also, no! These flyers seem to be a warning for cities beyond Estelline. A warning about the orbs, and a message, saying that no matter what happens...

You can trust Camellia to have the needs of the people as their top priority.]

[ .......

.... y....maybe..? just a quick peek to see what was left behind, okay? he's not going to eat anything he finds in there!!!

but hello? he's definitely going to pick one of these flyers and examine it closer. in terms of the camellia logo—do they look to be exactly the same? he's checking to if he could notice one being fabricated and another being legit.

given that it might be much to ask for the name of the cities (since it's probably flavor??) are these flyers more recent? suppose these also just have random people on them in addition to the logo or is it structured differently? ]

[He probably wouldn't want to, considering it's all gone off... but, you know. If he wants a moldy sandwich there's one there??

They look the same as every other one he's seen, and it's very recent - or at least as recent as anything has been. It seems like the flyers were printed only a week or so before everyone arrived to be students - as if it was a haphazard attempt to save people from the orbs, as it does say that if you see anything strange at night, do not approach them.]

[ i see. no, he will pass and politely close the minifridge. should he had thrown it out? maybe. is he? no.

hmms at the recent flyers. whomst the antagonist and whomst the protag in this story?

but okay, like much all things that sabo runs into whenever he's out on a journey, he's going to help himself to a flyer. does the flyer say anything else outside of the warning? places to go for safety? contact information of some sort?? and also because he is Like This, he'll flip through the stack of flyers to see what else could have been printed. you know, variations and the like.

he won't be going one by one but chunks at a time because who has time to do that??? also that is actually crazy. ]

05 - week five

Investigation - Post Office

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