October Event

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10/02 06:12

✽ Silence lifts at six in the morning, and there is still quite a bit of time before classes start. Early risers who decide to return to school from the dorms cross the courtyard and open the double doors and—- something cold and wet drips down onto their head: old blood from the torso of a student(?) bound by rope and strung up above the doors to the courtyard, body burned black and cut in half at the waist.
The air is heavy, and the entire school smells of blood.

Hope... month...

✽ A large poster advertising the student store has been tacked up on the bulletin board. For October, store hours are now 6AM to 8PM Monday to Saturday, and noon to 4PM on Sundays. Outside of those hours, the shopkeeper is occasionally in the shop and will leave the door propped open if they are, but more often than not, the door is closed and there is no answer when knocking on the door. Laundry tokens can now be purchased at a reasonable price. The rock gacha machine is now located just outside the door so it can be played at any time. Please continue to spend your hard-eared points on plain boring normal rocks.
✽ In the dormitory, the construction paper covering the oil paintings start to soak through with blood, causing the papers to grow heavy and fall. The distorted faces in the paintings seem to be bleeding from their open wounds, the canvas wet to the touch and smelling of blood. Blood dripping down the walls and on the floor do not cause the dorms to change, nor do the splatters of blood seen on the glass over the star dormitory rooms occasionally throughout the month, as if it had rained blood in the darkness and silence of night, although no other evidence is seen elsewhere in the courtyard.
✽ The wisteria tree slowly continues to lose its petals, and the area roughly ten feet around the trunk of the tree has become completely dead and barren, leaving dry dirt underneath. Despite shedding its petals, new buds are becoming noticeable now too. The spider lilies that bloomed during the autumnal equinox remain, still covering the rest of the courtyard and extending into the forest surrounding the school. Outside, the air smells faintly metallic at all times.
✽ Occasionally throughout the month and increasing in frequency and intensity towards the end of the month, characters with 13 or more tallies will find themselves sensitive to sunlight and loud noises, prone to vertigo upon standing or turning too quickly, and suffering ice pick headaches throughout the day.
✽ Characters with 5 or less tallies will hear faint white noise during the normally silent hours of midnight to 6AM, but no other sound.
✽ The class roster on the bulletin board acknowledges class 1-D for leading the rest of the classes in rank, being the first to reach 100. All characters in first year classes and #-D classes will receive 500 merit points and will be able to exit out the front door to the school. They will be able to make it up to the front gate, but will find themselves growing lightheaded and about to pass out if they try to squeeze through the bars or climb over the gate itself. Please contact me privately if they would try to get out anyways.
✽ The void in the auditorium continues to grow, and (pending character interaction) by the end of the month will encompass the entire right wing of the first floor past the lockers, the home ec cooking room on the second floor, as well as the art club room on the third floor.

Exchange Program

✽ On October 11, students participating in the exchange program are given one pocket knife each and sent out the front doors, upon which they will find themselves in that canon location as if they had stepped out of any normal door in the area. For characters who visit their own canon's location, they will find all their friends and family alive and happy— except for the one person they are closest to, who will be absent. Nobody there will recognize your character or the person they are closest to, regarding both as complete strangers, as if neither have ever existed in the first place. But otherwise... think of it as canon good end, in contrast to elevator bad end.
✽ There is no bus to take them back to Yogen and they can stay as long as they'd like, even forever if they feel like it. If they wish to return to their real home, though, they would have to first return to Yogen and figure things out from there. The first time they open the pocket knife, they will find a piece of paper tucked between the blade and the handle reading "Use to return." If they use it on other people, that's the local law enforcement's business. In order to return to Yogen, perhaps remembering Natsume's presentation mentioning how they got there in the first place, they will have to use the knife on themselves, or otherwise die by happenstance or, eventually, old age. Two weeks after their return to school, they will find one additional tally on the inside of their wrist.
✽ In return, Yogen receives three exchange students: two familiar and one not.

OOC

✽ The first prompt leads into this month's mini-event, which is becoming a misnomer, maybe they should be called murder events instead.
✽ All students leaving on the exchange program will icly be gone for at least 10/11 - 10/17, although they will be able to return at any later date in October, at the player's discretion, regardless of how much time they experienced on their trip. Just like in the bad end elevator and the void school, nothing physical can be taken back from the exchange trip, but characters can at least drain their bank accounts eating good food and exploring town before coming back.
✽ The new exchange students are former npcs Kouji Seki and Chiaki Kudo, as well as a new student ???. They can be interacted with in their corresponding toplevels below, after 10/11.

Comments

[commences]

For someone so wary of this school, you are an idiot for going along with it... ( he says this with a bright smile as he crosses his legs, looking towards her door like this is where she should tell him to get out. ) ...That dream of going back home, I don't believe that exchange was part of the plan... was it?

( he laughs softly in thought. )

You're tricking yourself... ( her desires are so strong, they're going to manipulate her from here on out, and he knows that'd be bad for someone so young. ) ...stop doing things alone, and don't drown out other people's methods... hope is to work together, you know?

[closewithnewintown]

[at first, she's about to snap at him, yell at him, use all the awful words she's been learning over the months to tell him off... and then she hears the latter part of his speech, and she can swallow it back down. her voice is oddly steady when she speaks.]

... You're actually mad at me, and all because your little pet is gonna end up being evil, and you don't like hearing it.

[scoffs] It's almost sadder if they didn't enchant you guys. You're acting like idiots just for a baby face.

[commences]

...No, I'm not mad at you, I love your hope just like everyone else's.

( he can't even say he's worried for her because of how she's been acting as of late, but think of it as a parent who wants to see their child excel, and not step back into the darkness. that's how he acts when he speaks with her, because he doesn't want anything unessecary to happen to her person — to die so hopelessly is how jumping off the billboard went, she doesn't have to die here the same way. )

What's evil, Stephanie? If it's for hope, it's done in the name of good. ( but she must be speaking about the shopkeeper, and he shrugs his shoulders. ) I'm a true judge of character when it comes to hope, and weak hope can be devoured by strong hope.

( that's all it is. ) You have a baby face too, don't tell me you're jealous... gasp! Ahaha, let's act like adults here, isn't that what you want from me anyways?

[closewithnewintown]

Why would I be jealous? I want my friends to be my friends, not my slaves.

If you're so sure that they want something good, why don't you know what the money's for? [which is actually not something she knows for sure that he doesn't know, but she remembers how subaru reacted. she can take an educated guess.] If their hope winning means the rest of us are thrown away like used tissues, is that "good?" Are you still gonna help them?

[commences]

Oh? I know what the money is for.

( he looks at stephanie slightly confused, but where did she hear about that [...], ah yes, subaru, he recalls now, so he smiles softly as he places his hands in his lap as he plays with her journal. )

That's smart, asking me the "what ifs" to gain a reaction to figure out what they're after. Sneaky sneaky...

( rokkun's is like that though, winning graduation, and throwing everyone else away to find their own heaven or hell, but he won't say that at all. instead he stares at her diary. )

Why are you so dead set on them, and not your own hopes? Though, you can be the hurdle in their way, I wonder what hope would come from that...

[closewithnewintown]

[she frowns hard, placing her fists on her hips.]

Because I think that with whatever they made their Deal with, money isn't the only thing they need. Because I'm sure I'm watching a bunch of grownups that should know better throwing themselves happily into a big trap.

... And all of that's because I seem to be the only person here who's read fairy stories. And not the ones for little kids. Not the ones where they're cute and helpful. The ones where you can get whatever it is you want, and all it will cost is everything.

[commences]

The world of faes work by a court, one Seelie and the other Unseelie —-

( yes, stephanie, he knows a bit from what he's read. they're not his favorite stories, but he does like to read in general so when the chances shows itself, he'll open a book to enjoy himself. )

Which means there's two parties... We aren't faes at all, so that means... while there's some malevolent, there's another side that could possibly help us... did you erase them from being a possibility?

[closewithnewintown]

[an eyebrow raises... and she gives him an almost-grin.]

You're the last person I expected to get tripped up on that part... Komaeda, I've been talking about Seelie this whole time.

[commences]

Am I? Ahaha... aren't you posing them too much as a threat, then... they're capable of having good intentions, not explicitly... but they're able.

( he smiles softly, flipping through her diary again. )

I just wouldn't blame them entirely for everything, especially the one you target your frustrations towards. Did you know they can return human kindness?

[closewithnewintown]

They don't have good intentions or bad intentions. Just their own.

[there are some pages of doodles, before the last page he's already seen, that are kinda interesting, just because they aren't like her normal ones. they're barely more than stick figures, and all are seemingly being killed by various methods. hit by a car. pulled under by a riptide. crushed by a roof.]

Can you do it? Can you consider that maybe the mysterious shopkeeper that showed up out of nowhere and sells dangerous magical items could be a threat? Because I've figured out that you guys don't want to do it, but I'm starting to wonder if you actually can't.

[commences]

( how... imaginative. he goes through each one properly, looking at the methods of death, some familiar others are ones he's seen in passing. if this isn't a sign that she's breaking, he doesn't know what it is, but between her diary and hnata's diary... their priorities are different. they don't bother him though as he looks at stephanie for a moment. )

Have you noticed they only last a year, and by the end of it you suffer the consequence? It's mostly meant for third years, and I'm a first year, they weren't even crafted for me.

( he blinks slow, nodding his head. ) When I asked for one, they didn't want me to purchase it at all.

[closewithnewintown]

[...]

Say, "I think there could be a chance that the shopkeeper could be dangerous to us." You could even tell your brain that it doesn't count. That you're just copying me, doing what I tell you.

[commences]

Reverse psychology, hm...

( he taps his chin in thought, but there's nothing stopping him so. )

"I think there could be a chance that the shopkeeper could be dangerous to us. You could even tell your brain that it doesn't count. That you're just copying me, doing what I tell you."

( ... ) Why not get a second opinion?

[closewithnewintown]

Is there even anybody here besides me that isn't already completely in love with them?

[commences]

Third opinion? Have you ever asked the ghosts what they think of the others here, maybe it'd help.

( looks at her, thoughtful. )

[closewithnewintown]

... What is with everybody here and wanting to do seances?

[pause] Also, Subaru wants to do a seance with the cats. He thinks they can talk.

["isn't steph all about keeping friends' secrets?" yeah. friends.]

[commences]

He's going to do what?

( as if that's the most important part of this conversation, but he sighs, thinking of how he has to tell him to back off. lily may has never did any wrong, and if she can talk... that's her secret! )

...You won't have to do a seance, though, I'm sorry.

[closewithnewintown]

How else am I supposed to talk to a ghost? [and no that's all he gets she's mad at him too.]

[commences]

Will you be responsible, will I... regret this, as you told me awhile ago?

( stares... she can be mad at him, but he remembers what she said. because of what he said, she got a little wild about her theories. )

[closewithnewintown]

I think you're gonna regret lots of things. [pause] What ghosts have you been talking to?

[commences]

I get around, you'll have to find them yourself.

( he's no help, but that doesn't stop him from pulling a fan from out his jacket pocket. )

This'll get the job done... give you the chance to get insight from a party who are deader than us, they would know more...

[closewithnewintown]

[. . .]

What, am I supposed to cool the ghosts down? That's just a fan.

[commences]

( he sets it on top of her diary, and shrugs his shoulders. )

Hm... I wonder what are you supposed to do, I'm sure your hope will push forward to figure it out. You aren't stupid at all...

[closewithnewintown]

You don't even know... [she sighs, picking up the fan. it looks. normal.]

Well, I guess we'll have plenty of stuff to talk about. Like being dead.

[commences]

Now, now... show it to Tanaka-kun.

( he says with a smile, because komaeda knows how it works, but he's aware of who enjoys the item more than anyone, and that way stephanie will figure out how it works. )

I'm sure he can helpful in this endeavor since it's about ghosts! I have my own method of associating, but we've had good conversations... with the ones I've spoken to.