divus: (Default)
Plasmatio Mods ([personal profile] divus) wrote2019-03-03 01:40 am
Entry tags:

THE GRAVEYARD

THE LANDING
You’re having an out of body experience. That’s how it starts, dying. There isn’t any pain anymore, and for a moment, not much of anything else. Your thoughts are a dim hum in the back of your brain, the tips of your fingers seem miles away. Despite that, you find yourself moving, moving, moving from the last place you were in your own body and forward, until you reach a door that you haven’t seen since the beginning of the game. A door that wouldn’t open. A door cold to the touch and seeping with mist. It opens before you, and as if of someone else’s design you walk through it. As it closes behind you, you get the distinct feeling that if you turned around, you’d find it vanished.

What takes up most of your attention, however, is the tolling of church bells. They clang in rhythmic, almost maddening persistence--seems you’re just going to have to try and ignore them, as they show no signs of slowing or stopping, wherever they are.

Once the cacophony becomes easier to manage, the bong, bong, bonging evening out to a pulse inside your ears, you realize that where you are seems to be a world that's incomplete. The floor is nothing but a landing of invisible matter, a spooled red carpet leading you to a few rows of pews and a lone confessional.

You will notice, immediately ahead of you, a cute little mailbox fit for a suburban home. It bids you welcome, though the cheery paint job is a bit muted in this dark place.

Simple and neat furnishings dot the edges of where the landing seems to be: railings mark the unseen edges and draperies and sconces float in the void, giving an illusion of walls. Be careful, however, because they can easily be fallen through if leaned against. Fortunately, someone seems to have kept that in consideration, as a helpful sign warns just this.

On one side of the confessional, a room with bookshelves, a writing table, and pens and paper has been provided: a minimalist study for when you need a bit of privacy to think. On the other side, a wing of dorm-sized, lockable bedrooms provide another bit of space to oneself. There may not be enough for everyone, but nobody really has to sleep--so just take turns!

To the left of the pews, it looks like a miniature bar has been crafted with a small but decent selection of drinks. There's a small television seated on the counter, but it only seems to ever work two times a week: the week's opening announcement on Monday mornings, and Saturdays, tuning in at the beginning of the trial and tuning back out again at its conclusion. There's also a piano to one side of the bar, allowing anyone to provide musical accompaniment to their drinking.

Perhaps most interestingly, an ornate black doorway at the far end of the room leads to a curving hallway that ultimately leads to what appears to be a temple. It's similar to the altar room they'll remember from the living side, but there are no power inscriptions, and the only furnishings are wavering, grayscale candles on the walls that never seem to burn low and great sculptures of leaping rams. The two black-marble statues meet in the center, curved horns joined above a platform, decorated with nothing but a lone offering bowl. The dark marble of the item is cracked, but it seems like it'll still get the job done. Try sending something, if you wish!

Maybe this place is meant to be more. But for now, Patience is the only notable figure you have to place your attention on, and she comes forward to welcome you immediately.

"Welcome to my dominion," she greets in her usual, cheerful candor, and points at your hand, where you hold your godly token. "Now that you've been eliminated, I'll take that back and return it on your behalf. Don't worry, though, I'm not leaving you empty handed."

OOC NOTES
Hello, eliminated competitors, and welcome to the graveyard. Although it isn't much to look at, now, this area will be growing and expanding in time with the help of your characters' actions and participation in weekly events. What they unlock will have an impact on the living side, overarching plot elements, and ways to communicate between both planes!

When it seems like there isn't much to do, there's always one option left: gathering information. So sit back, enjoy the afterlife, and put on your thinking cap!

hymned: (ѕend мy regardѕ тo нell)

[personal profile] hymned 2019-03-21 12:56 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, that would certainly be true.

[ ... ]

How morbid is it of us, exactly, to be discussing preferred methods of death?
goatsongs: smile (this book dive sucks)

[personal profile] goatsongs 2019-03-21 12:57 am (UTC)(link)
We're dead people, I think we've got the right if anybody does.

[at least they aren't Dazai.]
hymned: (ι'м ѕтιll нere and ι'м ѕιngιng ғor yoυ)

[personal profile] hymned 2019-03-21 01:02 am (UTC)(link)
Perhaps once we're out of here, I'll send a note making sure to specify my preferences.

[ wait. ]

... Actually, ah, no. I promised not to do that again.
goatsongs: smile (now that I think about it)

[personal profile] goatsongs 2019-03-21 01:06 am (UTC)(link)
"Again."

[why did you do it the first time, that's still dumb]
hymned: (yoυ can'т cнooѕe wнaт ѕтayѕ)

[personal profile] hymned 2019-03-21 01:16 am (UTC)(link)
You know I was dying.

But I would rather that my death have gone to something useful, rather than- I don't know. Languishing on a hospital bed, somewhere.

[ be used as a stepping stone by a man who only thinks in terms of the greater whole. ]
goatsongs: smile (suspicious)

[personal profile] goatsongs 2019-03-21 01:18 am (UTC)(link)
...does your brother know about that?

[Both that he's dying and something useful.]
hymned: (loѕт тo ѕearcн тнe ѕĸιeѕ)

[personal profile] hymned 2019-03-21 01:22 am (UTC)(link)
He took great exception to it.

... It's why he's here. He wanted to save- someone else. Someone important. And I'd offered to help, but...

[ how to say this? ]

Reaching Canaan requires a sacrifice.
goatsongs: mad (irritated)

[personal profile] goatsongs 2019-03-21 01:24 am (UTC)(link)
[Just taking a plane trip sounds a hell of a lot easier.]

But why does it have to be you?
hymned: (a мιѕeraвle нeavenly ғeelιng)

[personal profile] hymned 2019-03-21 01:32 am (UTC)(link)
Another curse of family genetics, as it would happen.

Some of the legends and records in our libraries paint it so nicely- that the distance between human and more will be bridged by the proof in one's heart, by one's beloved giving up their very life and soul.

[ as if the extended kresnik clan truly remembered anything of love, after all this time. ]

The truth of the soul bridge isn't anything nearly so romantic. It doesn't take any amount of love, just a certain measure of strength. There aren't enough of us strong enough, and I certainly wasn't going to allow him to be killed in my place.
goatsongs: upset (sulking intensifies)

suicidal ideation

[personal profile] goatsongs 2019-03-21 01:34 am (UTC)(link)
[Of course he wouldn't allow it. It's a pain that it's family genetics, because otherwise-

When someone you love dies, you have to commit suicide.

Otherwise Chuuya would have tried to help. He's a dead man, not merely a dead man walking.]


Any family members you like a lot less?
hymned: (нeaven нelp мe ι need тo мaĸe ιт rιgнт)

this thread now contains massive tox2 lategame spoilers, which i should've warned for earlier whoops

[personal profile] hymned 2019-03-21 01:49 am (UTC)(link)
[ he smiles, but it's with a wry and sharp, mirthless laugh, curled around the edges with a trace of an old bitterness. ]

Would that they were available, but unfortunately they're beyond our reach.

... We were trying to catch up to one of them, actually.
goatsongs: smile (serious)

[personal profile] goatsongs 2019-03-21 01:50 am (UTC)(link)
[the answer is definitely and severely 'yes, a lot less'.]

Good. Catch up to them and make them do it.

[Assuming Ludger doesn't get his wish here.]
hymned: (ғor a ғlaѕн oғ lιgнтnιng)

[personal profile] hymned 2019-03-21 01:53 am (UTC)(link)
You misunderstand. They've already entered Canaan.

The only way to catch up to them, then, is therefore...

[ a small, elegant shrug. ]
goatsongs: neutral (what now)

[personal profile] goatsongs 2019-03-21 01:55 am (UTC)(link)
...Got it.

[If Chuuya sounds like he's accepted the necessity of Julius' death, he absolutely hasn't.

He'll just need to talk to some other people about it.]
hymned: (don'т pιn ιт all on мe)

[personal profile] hymned 2019-03-21 02:09 am (UTC)(link)
[ Well, if Chuuya's going off to talk to other people... Julius lets him go easily, watching him leave with no apparent expression on his face.

Every now and again, Julius wonders why Chuuya seems to be so invested in this. Is it projection? A misplaced sympathy for a man who hasn't even managed to confess his multitude of sins to his own brother face to face?

How strange. ]