WEEK 6

[umbralant]

WEEK 6

monday

tuesday

wednesday

thursday

Five weeks. It's been five weeks, and twenty-seven has now dwindled down to eleven. And while only two passed this week, this trial may have been the most devastating in its own way, as threads of patience frayed and fragments of trust fractured. Nevertheless, if The Lady is to be believed, that may very well have been the final set of sacrifices that she was waiting for, so perhaps the end is in sight.

Of course, the fact that everyone is still stuck in Krakow means that it's not over yet, and who even knows what's happening over in the Twilight?

And so, some more changes are in store for this week, even if it may not be the same ones that you've gotten used to. For one thing, the fog stays put and no new areas of the city are revealed under the light of the lampposts. Secondly, The Lady is nowhere to be found in the city, with her bookstore office vacated and abandoned with nary a trace as to where she went. And third, the clock tower will no longer operate, which-- well. Actually that's not new at all, but it certainly may make it difficult to keep up with the facade of passing days. At least the moon still serves as a reminder of that, gibbous phase waxing into something fuller over the course of the week even if the color looks a bit off.

It may not be a fresh new start, but it's not time to give up yet, is it? After all, you are all Survivors.

[[Welcome to Week 6! Note that there are no new locations this week, but feel free to make top levels at your discretion, and remember to note it in your header if you plan on investigating any locations. As alluded above, The Lady will be unavailable, while Rembrandt will still be around on Monday and Tuesday before disappearing for the rest of the week.]]

navigation

profiles

rules

locations

shop

location changes

full navigation

Comments

MEETING - HOTEL RESTAURANT

[reanbeans]

[ Rean had, as usual, set up things in the Hotel Restaurant as soon as it hit 12:30PM.

Today, he made some Pizza, and he's super good at it, so enjoy. There's some fruit as well for healthy alternatives. Also, the return of the milk tea, alongside earl gray if someone was feeling fancy.

Once everyone was in, he'll address everyone. ]

Thank you for coming, everyone. We're in the final stretch now, which is hard to believe, but we've come this far. Nothing the Lady can throw at is will stop us now, so let's share whatever we have to make the confrontation easier. And of course to stop her and her plans for good.

We're all in this together, after all.

[ And with that, discussion's open. As always, treat as a general mingle. \o/ ]

[reanbeans]

[ At some point, he'll have more to add... ]

Dazai and I managed to find something in the meditation room once we opened the spa.

[ Bringing out the notebook...which the cover reads "Leave your worries here." ]

Anyone can look at what's inside if they'd like. It seems to be talking about some kind of illness with patients going into comas, and one apparently gaining an ability that sounded like Sonui.

[ No pun intended. ]

Also, in the Boutique there was this message sewn into a coat:

" The rumors might be true. Every Night can be ended by closing the-"

And it ended right there, of course.

[deadlygoals]

[psychophant]

Naturally that much would be cut off... [gods.] If we can find a way to end Night ourselves, that would be ideal. I suspect that it won't be a possibility, however.

[reanbeans]

Yeah...I'm not surprised at all.

[ Though he was miffed. Like 'of course'. ]

Or at least if it is, it's going to be a huge hurdle. Though if something does come up to make it possible, it can't hurt to go for it.

1/2

[deadlygoals]

[ He's pulling out his triangle that he found in the spa. Just going to ring it. Ting ting ting ting ting. What have the mods done giving him this? He will put it down on the table next to his slice of pizza. ]

Rideaux and I went into the hotel and found quite a bit.

2/2

[deadlygoals]

[ His expression changes to something more serious as he looks over at Rideaux. ]

The Hotel is where she experimented and kept us before we woke up on the street. We found all the reports there. I only brought the ones that aren't failures or basic stats.

[ He pulls out the map of the hotel he took, the first paper, #89, #294, #01, Page 1/4, and Page 2/4. He's moving to place them in the middle of the table before walking over to Rean. ]

Rideaux has a tablet, which was used to record one of her experiments. He can take it from here.

[ Then he'll lean in close to Rean to quietly let him know not to watch it. ]

[reanbeans]

[ ...He'll ask, basically:

"It's that bad?" ]

[pr159]

Right. It was made clear that the powers we obtained here came directly from the shadows, or whatever we're calling them -- the monsters here. It was also further confirmed that Rembrandt is uniquely capable of controlling them; the Lady can't do anything with them on her own.

I could provide a summary of her experiments, but since we have the option, we might as well get it straight from the horse's mouth. So, gather around.

[ He'll power on the tablet and hold it for everyone to see as this video plays.

He'll allow for a brief pause after the end of the video before he speaks again. ]

...As for other details of note, there were a total of 294 experiments, with number 89 as the first success, as you'll see in the reports. Additionally, we've been here much longer than we initially thought, likely for several months before we recall waking up here.

[ That's definitely not everything, but you can all read for yourselves. ]

[inordertobelieve]

The Night is a parallel world....? So this Earth isn't abandoned. Maybe not even this Krakow. The notices about comatose people we found... they must have been trickling in from the populated end.

[psychophant]

[this is so much, oh my god.]

I imagine you two didn't find any bodies or anything of the sort? [otherwise we'd get to have more autopsy reports from rideaux!!] I believe it was said earlier that the place was full of traps, is that still the case?

[raventhaw]

The nature of these notes and her behavior early on this week, compared to how she was just a week ago...

This may have been what she meant by "misdirection".

[inordertobelieve]

[ He's... going to give the pizza a critical stare. Very critical. In the end, he decides against eating it. Irrational as it may be, eating pizza just feels weird now. (Also he doesn't even like pizza in the first place, but that's a different matter.) Tea, however, is happily accepted. ]

I looked through the hotel's lower floor and found nearly nothing, except some tourism magazines that were lying out as if someone had recently looked at them. Those have stuck out to me before because they have the pages about the main square removed.

I also looked over the football field, which yielded... more tourism brochures. This was crumpled up under the otherwise remarkably clean bleachers. [ He will take out the brochure for perusal here. ] It's about the crypts below the city. Their public entrance is not available to us, but they are said to span under most of the town and be partially unexplored.

If they come to be relevant, we might find an entrance via the subway system.

[deadlygoals]

Wonder what is it about the main square...didn't someone else find them missing from books as well?

[ Also this means more pizza for him, so he's just going to grab another slice. ]

The crypts? I wonder if they are connected to the salt mines.

[inordertobelieve]

It seems like every trail in this city leads us back underground one way or another, that much is sure.

I am not fond of the idea of going down there, but we may have to.

[ And he's judging the pizza eating. There is no particular reason to even judge it, he just does. ]

[drydrown]

I opened the locked greenhouse in the botanical gardens. There's an absurd amount of poisonous plants in there; should you choose to enter, mind the sign, and if you don't know what something is in there don't touch it.

In the center of the room there are also white roses that seem to have been taken care of. The genuine article, not something that looks similar. I don't know what they're doing there.

[baitless]

I examined the lampposts throughout the city and did not find... that much of interest, though I should note that they're eerily uniform. They seem solidly built, and I could not find any dents or defects on them. The other thing of note is that they produce something of an eerie hum, which I assume isn't normal, and attempts to verbally address any potential soul inside were fruitless.

[inordertobelieve]

Granted those souls seem to have been turned into power sources, so the question is if they are even sentient anymore to begin with.

[ Being a lamp seems like a pretty... dead thing to be, if you ask him. ]

[psychophant]

[seteth talked to the lamps.........]

I spoke to Shin about the lamps, actually. He told me that the Lady installed more of these lampposts around the city. Those who had been attacked by the creatures were missing part of their souls, and were too unstable to survive escaping the Twilight. Shin apparently ate whatever was in the bulb in order to sate his hunger, which seems to have stabilized him well enough to make the transition from the Twilight. He also mentioned that he was nearly killed by their ally when he awoke in the Twilight because she thought he'd become like those blue-eyed "manifestations". He apparently only lost half of his soul as well, and he was quite irritated by the whole ordeal.

[He also ate plants, but you know what, that is not something any of us want to think about today.]

There's no guarantee that things will be the same on this side, but if you were unable to find any more information from the lampposts, then perhaps we should examine the bulbs closer.

[just eat a lightbulb seteth, just do it]

1 / 3 buckle up, it's infodump time

[psychophant]

[Iago still doesn't know what pizza is, so he's just eyeing that warily. Not that he has any plans of eating, he's got entirely too much info to share for that.]

Prior to his death, Dist and I shared all the information we've gathered about the Lady and Rembrandt. I have quite a lot to cover, so do pay attention.

[He's smiling, but he sure is pissed. Let's go.]

I'll start out with general information I've learned recently. The Lady has abandoned her office, though there wasn't anything to find there. I could find no trace of her anywhere else, and when I spoke with Rembrandt, he said that when she goes through moods like this, she doesn't talk with anyone. That includes Rembrandt himself.

I also studied the sludge Ulquiorra left for us. It turns out that it is melted-down currency. I imagine we may be able to exchange it for something at the post office. There are eighty-three vials, in case anyone's wondering.

[He's also got info about the Lady and Rembrant, to be put in separate comments for some attempt at organization.]

[psychophant]

Let's discuss Rembrandt first. Rembrandt Meijer is not his real name, but it isn't an alias either. He's told me that he is whatever the Lady needs him to be. With that said, it isn't as though this is a one-sided deal - there's something he wants from her though he's always been cagey about exactly what it is.

At this point, I believe it's incredibly likely that he's a demon. He confirmed that the Lady used magic once, and it had to do with Rembrandt himself. Given the missing demon summoning books, this makes the most sense to me. It could also explain why she dislikes the idea of magic so much, if things didn't go exactly as she thought they would.

Initially, I had theorized that the deal the Lady made with Rembrandt would involve giving up her soul at the end, but I think it's more likely that she would offer much more than that. Regardless, Rembrandt is willing to make deals for someone's soul. His eyes were bright red and his teeth were much sharper when we discussed it.

He has also said that his powers are a part of him, they aren't something he was taught. He seems to be capable of a great many things; I can't even begin to guess at the limit of his powers. With that said, traveling between worlds is not his doing, but it's the Lady's. [More on that in a moment.]

Rembrandt has expressed displeasure with the Lady in the past. It may be possible to turn him against the Lady, but that is only a theory and not one I suggest attempting to pursue without further information. Until we know the details of their deal and if it can be called off, we need to assume that Rembrandt will remain loyal to the Lady through this and prepare to deal with him if needed.

[psychophant]

As for the Lady herself... Well, it sounds as though she came from a rather interesting world. Dist told me that her world is run by geniuses like herself - those who are gifted intellectually, but are completely crazy. What she told me about her family lines up. Her father's name was "Lucifer, like the demon" [does that mean anything to anyone, because it still doesn't mean anything to him] and he was involved in working on animal augmentation as well as teleportation portals. Using the information she gained from her father as well as several scientists she killed for their work, she was able to create the technology to travel between worlds. The animal augmentation she worked on involved insects, although she wasn't able to pursue her research here due to how limited their growth was.

Oh, she's also married. That's important because I have never seen her that angry; she hates her husband and wants him dead. Given how furious she was, I imagine that part of her plans involve returning home to kill him, though I have no idea if that's her main goal or simply something she'll do after she's obtained what she wants.

Perhaps most importantly, Dist confirmed that her current interest is in preserving memories and consciousness to transplant it into other brains. She has created a device to do this. My theory is that "Ruby" - the unfamiliar person in the Twilight - is the soul of the Lady's current body. Dist and I speculated that Rembrandt might be gaining that soul instead of the Lady offering up her own, but that seems unlikely given the scope of all of this. Rembrandt likely would require more as a payment.

Dist also discovered that the Lady doesn't know about the Twilight, or at least she didn't when we spoke of it, shortly before his death. She had no idea where the power was coming from or how certain buildings were regaining electricity. I'm not certain if Rembrandt knows about the Twilight or not. He's kept information from the Lady before, so it's possible.

Finally, the Lady was worried last week about someone sneaking into the castle through the sewers to attempt to kill her or Rembrandt. Once again, I don't suggest this course of action, but we may want to see if it's possible to do just that. The castle is the last place we have yet to fully examine, after all.

[And there we go, five weeks of private conversations with the masterminds out in the open, have fun with all this tl;dr.]

[bawcock]

Remember that computer we were told about last week? Well, Raven and I were able to take a gander at it on Monday! There wasn't too much on there—there was a picture of the Main Square, some snapshots of food, and a couple of music files. [ Jazz, if it's important! ]

All of it should still be there if anyone needs to take a look. The only thing that seemed important though was a message that said.

Those desiring greater power gather under the red moon. Born again. Immortal. Vessel rupture. Fate worse than death. A false you.

[inordertobelieve]

'A false you'...?

[ That doesn't sound disconcerting AT ALL, god. Mikami looks pretty stressed by now. ]

I assume the Red Moon is upon us very soon, looking at the state of the moon outside.

[reanbeans]

[ ... ]

A...false you?

[ Hm.

That's definitely worrying!! ]