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

[starrypoint]

[but it's like he's always asking -- just how much of yourself can you lose until you're not "you" anymore? if he and natsume had been switched, if subaru had so many months without him and natsume had come in instead, would he have been recognizable? or would he have been stripped away by the black hole that was this school, smaller and dimmer than natsume recalled?

he doesn't have to think about it though. because he wouldn't have become dim, he would've been put out completely; a sparkler lit and then falling into the bucket beneath in pieces. subaru had his mother, he had a dream. he had natsume, he had trickstar. he had anzu, he had chiaki. but he would have had none of that here.

... it's depressing. so he cuts it off, like a balloon freed from a weight, and lets himself laugh.]

Yeah~, you're right. ♪ [...cats.] Anyway, what're those for?

[crystallomancy]

You can't have Halloween without a few black cats skulking aBOUT. It's said witches were able to turn into them TOO... That's why killing them was a popular activiTY, and why they remain a symbol of unluckiness toDAY.

But they're only ordinary CATS. ( snip snip snip ) Humans were monsters to label them anything ELSE.

( ... )

Do you actually care when you ask this type of THING, Mr. Skeptic?

[starrypoint]

Sure! I don't believe in superstitions like that, but I like hearing people talk about what they're into.

[it's nice! subaru sets his pumpkins aside and reaches for a cookie.]

Just like how I take fortunes from you every time you offer, even though I don't really believe in stuff like that.

[but still plays up begging for a good fortune and he believes in wishes on stars and whatnot]

[crystallomancy]

( should he let subaru have a cookie after all of that.......

he can have one :/ but only because he's too busy cutting cats to stop him without stabbing him with scissors. the cookies are warm with cinnamon and nutmeg, hints of cardamom and vanilla... cozy. )

I'll start refusing YOU. ( he won't. natsume likes telling fortunes, even for people who don't believe in it. it's only when they start getting nasty about his work he doesn't agree with them. ) Anything else you'd like to KNOW?

( he loves ... halloween ... pws )

[starrypoint]

[yesssss... he's gonna enjoy his colorblind bat.]

If ghosts are the only thing I'm gonna be seeing as the days pass.

[because

he came back and now there are the more visible forms of ghosts ☆]

[crystallomancy]

...You're only seeing them because the veil thins around this time of YEAR. Halloween, also known as All Hallow's Eve, is famous for that very THING, though it's hardly the only holiday that does IT.

( a small smile. )

At least the ones here are friendLY. ( but he's biased towards his gentle human-eating monster gardener friend and his adorable library ghost girl who steals fingernails as payment for overdue books. ) I'm glad more people get to see THEM.

[starrypoint]

[...]

Katsukon's a cool dude. I'm gonna try and meet that little ghost friend of yours too that you mentioned, the one in the library, even though I won't always be able to...

[................ library......................................

he's gonna quietly, thoughtfully eat his cookie.]

[crystallomancy]

She'll love seeing you anyWAY... As long as you know she's there TOO, you can talk to HER. You know how ouija boards work, RIGHT?






( not that he's saying to use a ouija board in this school b )

[starrypoint]

-- Yeah! Yeah, I do.

[can he....... look haruka in the eye, after the romantic confessions she saw.... maybe she sees them a lot. maybe that's fine. he forgot she was around that area.]

Should I bring her a snack?

[crystallomancy]

( ................................................... )

She's DEAD, Baru-kun.

[starrypoint]

And? We always make a plate for Dad.

[and he's dead.]

[crystallomancy]

( hmm. )

She likes pudDING.

[starrypoint]

[pudding... pudding for silence... he sees... that'll be a good trade if necessary...]

Does she like people reading stories to her?

[crystallomancy]

She's like SIX. I'm sure she DOES.

( ???? HARUKA... IS LITERALLY A CHILD... it's okay. )

[starrypoint]

[oh my god.................. pudding for silence.]

Okay, okay! I just wanna make a good impression on her~. Especially since otherwise I'm stuck with a piece of paper and a rock or whatever.

[he made a cat ouija board for steph but like, the cats would step on it. so.]

[crystallomancy]

You'll want something lighter and that you can see THROUGH, like wood with a hole in IT.

( not that he's ever... used one before... but just saying. )

It'll be easier for her to push that WAY.

[starrypoint]

[hm.........]

I think I can probably make something like that... Does she have a favorite shape?

[oh my god]

[crystallomancy]

( not that he... knows of...? )

Just make something eaSY. You're an iDOL, not a craftsMAN.

[starrypoint]

I'm more of a craftsman than an idol here, Natsume.

[even if he still practices.]

We can't be big names if we can't leave the school.

[crystallomancy]

Is being famous all being an idol meant to YOU, Baru-kun? How disappoinTING. I thought you were diffeRENT.

( ... )

[starrypoint]

You know it's not, Naaaatsume.

[c'mon.]

Have you done anything idol-like since you "woke up", Mr. Fortune Teller?

[crystallomancy]

( no, he hadn't, and he gives subaru a dark look before he pushes the two witch cats he's already cut out at the other, and the half-finished one while he's at it )

Excuse me for being a little preoccuPIED. ( a little cold, too. ) It isn't as if I haven't thought about doing someTHING, but it feels a little crass to put on a show a week or two after someone's DIED.

And it has been months since no one died--I don't think we've really had a moment of peace since the start of the school YEAR, in ApRIL.

[starrypoint]

And how do you think I feel? I woke up, met a couple of people, and then saw them get stabbed by a ghost girl you told me off the bat you killed!

[it's more of a raised whisper than a raised voice, and subaru loosens his grip on the pencil. switches it for a marker. very consciously, very concentratedly, marking the various faces he's drawn. not looking at natsume, because he's making so many missteps with the only person he feels comfortable doing it with and even then it's

it's nervewracking in a way.]

And then on top of that, I learned I was dead and stuff... The only times I like singing are when I'm practicing with the Music Club, Natsume; I'm not a solo artist.

[he has a solo, but he'd rather sing with others.]

[crystallomancy]

( natsume flinches— draws into himself, wonders if he shouldn't have told subaru in the first place anyway. things were going fine with other new people; they didn't know about june, and that was fine. maybe he'd been too hasty.

he sneaks a glance at subaru, lips pursing, and kicks it to the curb. what's done is done, and there are more important details lingering in the air. )

You met Kudo-chan?

( asked softly, simply. and then )

Who did she STAB? ( ... wait, that day— ) You went to meet with the little lamb and Saihara-kun, about your COIN...

[starrypoint]

Mmhmm.

[... he glances over, guilt gnawing at his chest, and then he lays his head on his arm. he can draw like this.]

To be honest... I knew about a couple of things in your presentation already, Natsume. Like how we were all dead, and how we come back -- how most of us come back, at some point, no matter if it's like Baachan did [dead and then returned] or if it's after we graduate and get moved through the cycle.

[...]

Through uh, samsara. Kudo-san talked about it with us, along with Macchi's contract... but I didn't want to think about any of it, [who would,] so I just... didn't.

[sorry hangs quietly in the air, unspoken in word but in his tone instead]