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11/08 - 11/13 Cultural Festival

The school campus opens its doors to the public early Monday morning, with family, friends, neighbors, and strangers arriving to fill up the halls, each visitor having eyes of gold and wallets full of cash. Festival events run from 8AM to 4PM, and pamphlets are handed out by students lining the locker area, which include a schedule and a map of the campus:

✽ The opening event on Monday is an idol performance in the auditorium by the twin star unit GEMINI, consisting of Natsume Sakasaki and Subaru Akehoshi. On Thursday afternoon, the music club will hold a performance in the auditorium, featuring the typical choir with piano accompaniment, a capella performances by smaller groups of members, as well as solos, with requests taken in between performances so members can switch off and take a break.

✽ The student store is open every day up until noon on Saturday, and while the absurdly high prices are still absurdly high, there is a sign up in front of the rock gacha that one of the prizes is an all day pass to any of the school's events for one day of the festival. The odds aren't worth the price, but it's not like the shopkeep reveals the odds.

✽ Class 1-B is hosting a themed cafe in their homeroom.

✽ Class 1-D has turned their homeroom and neighboring classrooms into escape rooms, which runs from Tuesday to Friday.

✽ The robotics/programing club and the gaming club have set up a variety of video games in 2-A, and are hosting a competition between visitors and their AI.

✽ Class 3-D is hosting a kissing booth in their homeroom.

✽ In the home ec cooking room, the cooking club is hosting a cooking contest, with student judges and prizes for the winners.

✽ The sewing club and the art club have put together a photo booth inside the home ec sewing room, featuring all sorts of props and costumes imaginable to try on and pose in front of a number of hand painted backgrounds. Photos are taken by an instant camera for visitors to take home a keepsake. In the art club room, the art club has a gallery set up, with paintings hanging from the walls and sculptures set up in front of them, and a strict no touching policy or one of the members threatens to scoop your eye out with a palette knife and she doesn't look like she's joking. There is a large open canvas, however, for visitors to try their hand at paints or charcoal or pastels on what will become a collaborative art piece done by an entire week's worth of visitors. Occasionally throughout the festival, an art club member will have a space off to the corner for portraits or face painting.

✽ The sewing club has also contributed plush toy prizes for various other class' game stalls throughout the school, where visitors can pay to play for a chance to win small prizes, and are able to trade up several smaller prizes for larger ones.

✽ Out past the courtyard, various sports teams host games throughout the week, including relay races and obstacle courses and tug o' war and """soccer""". Basically it's sports day, because there had been a sports day on the calendar but I never look at the calendar so it was already halfway through the month before I realized.

✽ The fourth floor hallway has been cleaned up and turned into the rest area, with rugs laid out across the ground and comfy chairs scattered around the room and little bags of cat treats for sale to entice the fluffy white cat into hanging out in this space all week. Even without treats, she is content to sit on people's laps and rub against their ankles and let them bury their faces in her stomach. Healing.

✽ In the evening on the final day, after all the visitors leave, a large bonfire is set up in a non-flammable area between the courtyard and pool building and left to burn late into the night for those students who choose to remain on campus until around 8PM, when the festival culminates in a small fireworks show that lights up the sky overhead in reds and golds, while on the ground, sparklers are passed around for a quiet moment appreciating the beauty, and transience, of life.

OOC

✽ Throughout the school year, merit points have occasionally been earned through interactions between students involving strong emotion, whether positive or negative. This month, characters may notice that this happens much more frequently, and the amount of merit points earned is also sometimes more than the typical one point. Please report threads of strong emotion below, as this will minorly affect December.
✽ On 11/23, Yogen sees its first snow of the year, a light dusting across campus that does not stick when the sun rises again the next morning, but it will snow on and off until the end of the month.
✽ This event log doubles as a TDM, with new characters experiencing the recurring feeling of drifting in (school life) and out (canon life) of sleep up until they "open their eyes," after which they will have full awareness and come to their senses.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[THAT SKITTERING NOISE NO THANK YOU.

Okay so it's not some kind of hellscape and there are no lethal death traps scattered all over the floor. And the music fucks immensely. Shin is now more baffled than stressed, for now.]

...

Where did they get all this sand?

[He's kind of glad it's not his problem. Whoop and then he's being pulled by the arm towards the plushes, unheld arm windmilling a bit as he catches up. Oh hey, he recognizes these...]

H-hold on...! Geez... What's Yacchi, anyway?

[Did... the shopkeeper? Lose a plush of their own, or something?]

Edited (got so excited i forgot some html) 2021-11-08 06:33 (UTC)

[and calm as can be, settled in a chair as if she was at the beach and draped in a white lab coat, is a familiar face. well, right now she's not supposed to be familiar - she's meant to be "different," the overseer of this particular room! which mainly means checking to make sure they're on the right path and ensuring their safety. she likes the both of them far too much to let them be truly hurt, but as it was explained...they might need an incentive to play along.

good morning! do your best!]

[ !! She can hear the shuffling dragging footsteps break apart when the shopkeeper looks up from their tunnel-visioned Yacchi search and notices Helena there, immediately letting go of Shin's arm and ditching him to run over to Helena's side. ]

Helena!!

[ A little skitter when they run towards her and has to put on the brakes so they won't crash into her, wanting very badly to latch onto her like a leech but they'll behave and settle for bouncing nervously on the balls of their feet instead. ]

Yacchi's my friend! Helena, do you know where it is?

( shin is unfortunately left with a huffin' puffin' plush :( there is nothin' at huffin' puffin'... )

Edited (i saw a joke an di wanted it) 2021-11-08 07:12 (UTC)

[He's going to cast a look over at Helena and Keigo and while it looks like they're busy collect the plushes and quickly arrange them in a line with the largest one in front before heading over pretending like he didn't... Listen, even if he feels silly, and it's not any part of whatever puzzle is going on here... you can't separate them...]

[she knows, and on a different day she would have let them leech cling and restore their missing heart that way - but today she has to be firm! steady! at the least she beams when they're near, pressing the button to lower the music volume - she has to be heard, after all, by Shin as well.]

The both of you are just the people I've been waiting for. First, I must confess what I know - Yacchi has been kidnapped, along with another friend named Jabba. So, this is a rescue mission that I need two brave souls to take on - you must find a way out, to save them from their precarious predicament!

[other people, she might have played up the angle of trapped and slowly dawning terror, but not for two of her dear friends.]

It won't be easy, and in fact, danger lurks ahead, waiting to strike, but I have the utmost faith in you that you'll both evade what may cross your path and that you'll be able to work together and navigate the way forward. Do you think you can do this?

[ Oh... Jabba. Keigo glances over at Shin. So he sleeps with stuffed animals too; look at him diligently organizing them in a row. ]

Mm... They're not somewhere in this room?

[ If they're to find a way out as their primary goal and not find their friends. Moving away from Helena's side, they shuffle over towards the bottom right corner up to the edge that's either flooded with water or covered in blueprints, not sure, but if it's the former they're making Shin wade through it and if it's the latter they'll take a closer look. ]

[N-no, he doesn't he swears! Ignore the black cat plush back in his dorm room okay, Sara's already given him some good-natured grief about it... delete the arranging from your memory also. He has no idea what Jabba is, except... maybe a plush frog?]

So you set this all up, huh...

[Although he senses the action of another hand somewhere in this, if only because he'd like to think Helena wouldn't call him a 'born coward'. ...It's true, but they shouldn't say it.]

Find a way out... shouldn't be too hard.

[Easier than an underground killing game at least, although famous last words... If it's water he'll be even more 'glad that's not my problem' about it and take off his shoes and socks and roll up his trousers to wade in under the pressing... if it's blueprints then that's a lot easier.]

Edited (added a bit) 2021-11-09 02:09 (UTC)

As Shin wanders around the room to retrieve the plushies, if he's familiar with Nene Yashiro's handiwork, he can tell that this all came from her gentle hands! Aside from that, the Huffin Puffin by the boombox is... a trap! His shoes will fall into the sand hole, and now one of his shoes are filled with sand... the song is still playing. The one he retrieves from the sandcastle happens to fall over, as the bird was holding it up! Perhaps they can make a new one soon...

They are now in an order from smallest to larger, and are ready to head south for the winter whenever the snow comes. After the diligent Floormaster's helpful advice about Yacchi and Jabba, she can rest and relax in her comfortable chair with a towel, and a nice snack or two. Keigo can make their way towards the water... or rather, blueprints! Luckily for Shin, he does not have to suffer with getting his shoes wet, or wondering who has to clean the mess... it's just the sad!! Now that they both have a better view, it's big sheets of paper all in various colors of blue, green, and teal that makes up the water, and the white handwriting that alludes to it being the agitation of seawater's dissolved organic matter (I can't believe it's not foam!).

> The Shopkeeper checks the blueprints!
> The Coward checks the blueprints!

To Keigo, the information on the sheets surface are incomprehensible, nothing makes sense, and probably are above their pay grade. There's no manifolds hidden here, is that a good thing or a bad thing? It seems the creator of this room didn't intend to make it familiar for their eyes, probably, maybe. As for Shin, he might recognize that some of the diagrams look familiar, like something he might've seen before -- some look more technological, while others are covered with circles and scrawled notes on runes and the properties of rocks... But it's impossible to make sense of these if you don't know what you're looking for!

[ ...it's like how you solve a jigsaw puzzle when you don't know what the final picture will be, you sort them by color and, as incomprehensible as the pages are to them, they can at least pick things up and organize them by subject. Makes sure there's no hints on the back sides, and then hands them to Shin to figure out. ]

Here. You're super smart, right?

[ Don't let them down. ]

[Rip his shoes... at least it's not wet sand in them now :' )]

R-right.

[The disadvantage to someone looking up to you....... someone looking up to you. No pressure, Shin. Stay cool. Don't beef it... He leafs through them, careful to maintain the stacking.]

Well, these ones here are for machines, and these ones are for magic... [He recognizes that much from Clamor's new "math" classes at least. It's hard to say what they're for or how or if they're supposed to be combined, it's just a mish-mash of random information... he's filing away as much as he can, though.] It's all very complicated... Not sure why they're here, though.

[Nothing that relates to any 'Yaccha' or 'Jabba' or even an exit... looks like they need to find more pieces of the puzzle first. And thankfully, he can outsource a bit.]

Let's hold onto these for now... [Sound of them going into an inventory slot or being tucked under an arm; same thing.] We'll probably find out if we keep looking for anything strange... so keep an eye out, okay?

[It's how these things go! Paying attention to what doesn't make sense... well there's the boombox and the sound coming from the corner... what's up with that. Shin'll likely head over to check the device if Keigo has nothing they'd like to try themselves.]

> THE COWARD HAS GAINED BLUEPRINTS!

INVETORY:                  
(∞) BLUEPRINTS       
(∞) SAND IN SHOES

Checking the boombox shows a very simple machine with a pink mp3 attached to the top. All the buttons work properly, and he can turn the volume up or down if he decides on doing so — it's pretty loud up close, and will probably bother the eardrums if he doesn't turn it down. If he reads the text that appears on the mp3, it reads: Miss. Monomi's Practice Lesson, but aside from that, it's a very normal boombox with a mp3 player. Komaeda's not dead yet so don't even think about it, mister!

Edited 2021-11-10 23:30 (UTC)

Okay! Can you change the music? I want to listen to something better.

[ They don't follow as Shin investigates the boombox, once the corner is cleaned up and they stand, for a moment, with their back against the wall and looking about the room, thinking about the last time they were in a room filled with play sand...

...

Keigo wanders over to the largest puffin to pick up and hug to their chest, just to have something to hold onto for moral support. The only other immediately strange thing is the food and drink— Amami had made them breakfast before they got here, so they aren't too keen about trying anything. Do the sandwiches look okay? Maybe they'll pocket one for later. The drinks they sniff at and if it's not apple juice or if it smells funky, they don't want it. ]

Sou... Did you have breakfast yet?

That's all the music we have...it's this or silence, I checked.

[you get used to it, over time.]

But, you know...if you look around, you might find the way to turn it off.

[she says, having the remote in her pocket.]

[ ...................

Okay, they're going to peek under all the chairs for this supposed off switch, help ]

As Keigo makes their way to the chair closest to them, where Helena is sitting, they'll have to lift her labcoat to peek under, but once they do... they can look under and see a fake little crab made out of clay that happens to be protecting some familiar rocks that are from their shop. The creature stands tall on the rocks, and its pincers directed towards the youth, but not frightening at all. Just a parent watching over its young, probably. Little seashells make up its home, blue, white, and brown, but there's nothing here.

Onto the second chair! This one has a purple tube sitting in the seat, and a towel beside it so that they (Shin and Keigo) can relax, when they look under the chair, they see nothing in particular aside from the shadow of the umbrella, "sunlight" and then the shadow of the chair of where they're looking. They're getting sooooo much sand into their shoes at this rate, and onto their clothes, but if they look up, they can see a small ducky also made out a clay, along with a rubber ducky beside it. There's a small cut out of a napkin that acts as the ducks towel underneath, but there's nothing here.

Last, but not least, the chair by the boombox that continuously plays the one song, and Shin still standing idly by. As Keigo gets down on their knees, they'll get even MORE sand in their shoes... and their hands and knees sink into the familiar warmth where they'll realize there's more sand here — probably a trap to catch anyone who wanders this way. Now, obtaining all this sand has proven successful, because as they peek underneath, they'll find a envelope with a seagull drawn on top, addressed to both players in fancy, almost unreadable handwriting: To Arata-kun and Tsukimi-kun.

[ Gonna pocket the rocks to resell and then, without mentioning it to Shin first, open the envelope to read, sitting down with it on their lap while they pull their shoes off their feet to dump out all the sand.

Afterwards they'll go "Hey! Look at this!" and wave the letter in the air to catch Shin's attention like they'd just found it. ]

⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠁ ⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠚ ⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠁ ⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠚ ⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠚ ⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠁ ⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚ ⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠁ ⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠚ ⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠁ ⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁ ⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠚⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠁

[ ...oh

They have no pen on them, but what they have is Amami's stupid expensive cellphone that really should not be anywhere near sand but it's getting set on top of the sand while npckun opens up a notepad app and taps out

01100001 01100100 01100001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 01101100 01100001 01100011 01100101

... ]

Sou! [ okokok ] Do you know binary?

[At this rate I feel very sorry for the dorm washing machine because Shin is going to put so much sandy clothes in there.

I'm going to pretend he's been futilely and fully occupied and focused with his scarf hunched up over his ears taking the mp3 out of the boombox and scrolling through it for literally anything else before what was initially a bop turns into All I Want For Christmas Is You and this is why he didn't answer any questions breakfast related or otherwise, sorry Keigo.

It's the movement in the corner of his vision that makes him look up and put it back down, heading over the short distance from the noise to see what they've found. Why are you typing on sand, isn't that harder than just putting it on one of the deck chairs? Also I'm crying he's assuming the ludicrously expensive phone is the direct result of Keigo's ludicrously expensive prices, and he's just... getting sand in it. The bourgeoisie...]

Huh? Who even uses binary these days... Let's have a look.

[He at least has refreshed his memory a bit frantically going over the basics for his classes out of nervous impostor syndrome but. Give him a second. He'll move the phone up onto the aforementioned nearby deck chair for a better view and take out his own less expensive free with every death game phone, making a fresh notes page (hurriedly going past the one already there) to tap out letter by letter, glancing back and forth, a-d-a-space-l-o-v-e-l-a-c-e.]

...Ada Lovelace?

[Tilting it so Keigo can see.]

She was the world's first computer programmer... I wonder.

[He's going to take the computer related blueprints out of his inventory and also spread them out on the chair and see if knowing this makes any heads or tails out of them, and then belatedly remembers:]

Ah, good work...

[Help, he still doesn't know their name.]

Edited (minor tweak) 2021-11-15 23:47 (UTC)

[ Them being a no-name shopekeep-kun is all according to plan, and anyways... praise is praise, and Keigo beams up at Shin with the light of a thousand suns. ]

You too! I'm super lucky to have a smart partner!

[ As opposed to other partners, whose gut reaction to solving puzzles is to pull out a gun and/or make things explode.

...As opposed to them, who is now at a loss as to what more they'd be able to contribute. A landline telephone was peak technology as far as they're concerned; they don't know anything about computers, or of programming. Hmmmmmmmm... They're going to sit down next to Shin and nibble on a sandwich while they watch him think. ]

Fiddling with the MP3 Player has led to a fascinating discovery, and yes, All I Want For Christmas begins to play within the room, spreading holiday cheer on the island. There was a debate over whose vocals, but it seems Mariah Carey has won out...

Congradulations.

Ada Lovelace? Wonder what that's about! As Shin pulls out the blueprints, spreading them out on the chair, he'll see what he saw before, some pages talking about technology, and others having magic circles, and an unknown language. As he looks them over one by one, he'll find that he doesn't see anything notable about them, everything appears to look the same? White and black text written on green and blue paper as far as the eyes can see, words pressed together that make no sense to him, well, perhaps the technology papers do, but there's nothing that his eyes would be able to make note of!

As for Keigo, enjoy your ham sandwich, kiddo, you deserved it for working so hard!

[guess who is v proud of them both for deducing that clue, and by this point retrieved herself a drink to sip on while enjoying the brand new music. it's early for Christmas, but hey, why not?

you can feel the support...it's a little buff for the two of them to keep going.]

A-a mental attack!?

[Is this what's going to be on loop from now on? Help. He'll try fiddle with the mp3 again to get the other song back and then try to turn the boombox itself off, but it's probably safe to say he's doomed to suffer. The buff... it does help though.]

Ahaha, well...

[The mutual praise... This is a little too blinding, he has to look away and he's also flashing back to losing all his money. Catch Shin thinking every one of Keigo's given nicknames is an entirely different person until he gets enough description it clicks.]

Where'd you find this, anyway?

[He can see the sand-covered envelope, but missed it's acquisition.]

11/08 - 11/13 Cultural Festival

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pretend i didn't straight up cease to exist for two days

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