MARCH EVENT LOG

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00:00 03/01

At midnight on March 1st, a rolling lightning storm hits Yogen. Thunder crackles, and strikes of Anvil Crawler lighting can be seen lighting up the sky; anyone paying attention to the courtyard may see the explosive strike of lightning hitting the wisteria tree. Petals scatter throughout the air and are carried off in every direction by the wind...

00:01 03/01-03/31

As the month goes on the school will start to look even more barren. As the month goes on, several students start to disappear, with rumors spreading here and there about students disappearing after entering the forest. Those rumors twist and warp, and within just a few days there are rumors of a witch in the forest. But it's not a witch, nor a ghost, or anything else, but a dream, and those who enter will find themselves reminded of such by a soothing voice, the voice of a person they're familiar with, speaking gently in their ears:

"You are dreaming... They have always led and will always lead you here... Remind yourself, this is a dream..."
The world shifts subtly. There are gravestones marking the pathway now, and before long the forest is replaced by a completely new scene. A voice reminds you once more that this is a dream, and that you have always been here. You have always been led to this place. But where is this place? It's the world of a player character. It's nothing more than a snapshot in time. It might be one that they wish to escape, or perhaps a warm memory of a time that they wish to return to, but it is always an important memory to the character.

Whichever it is, the only way is to move forward. As characters move through the memory, characters will soon notice a snake and holly tattoo that spreads over their body will be. It starts small, a clump on one's back, but will spread across all parts of a character's body. It will reach the neck and face last, killing them upon reaching the eyes. As the curse spreads, they will notice changes in the dream including hallucinations, hearing lullabies, and shades that pursue them. They will also notice increased exhaustion and lethargy.

Upon reaching the end of the memory, they will find a glowing ball of light representative of a lost student's soul. Finding the soul will lead to both characters awakening at the edge of the forest, and the character who had been dreaming will be covered with the tattoo for a brief moment before it disappears.

Those who entered the dream may hear that same voice from before that tugs at their mind as the dream fades away:

"Remind yourself, this is a dream, and soon you will awaken. But you are here, as you always have been, and as you always will be... Soon, you will wonder where you were, and each moment after, will bring you here..."

OOC

✽ Dreams may be whoelsale memories, or they may be more akin to dreamscapes based on a person's memories or mental state.
✽ The holly pattern represents the pain of love and aches of the heart, while the snake represents the yearning for the dead that consume a person.
✽ The tattoos will be blue or red.
✽ Characters may be drawn into the forest more than once, or require multiple memories to be gone through before reappearing. In those cases, the character who had gone through the initial memory will simply wake up in the forest alone.
✽ Characters who hear the voice upon leaving the dream will be more susceptible to entering and being lost in the forest.
✽ Anyone who is not rescued by the end of the month will be found at the edge of the forest. The tattoo will cover their body and stop just short of their eyes. It will disappear within an hour, but they will be exhausted for the rest of the day.

Comments

[notsosou]

[He plugs it in... and the world goes black.

Only, not completely. The sensation of standing on something hasn't changed, and the screen in front of him is still there now turned CRT, the static roar of the surroundings now emanating from it's speakers quietly, it's screen showing visual snow... there's almost a chill coming off it, but that might be the mind playing tricks.

The light flickering off it illuminates, in thin lines of shine, a black metal stand holding it at the same height within the void. The lights of the tree are replaced with the lights of a VCR, pinpricks of colour underneath. There's the sense, only the sense, of a surrounding room, without perception of it...

There's a noise and vague motion of a tape inserting itself, spooling up, and Ranger is... somewhere else. Somewhere he'll recognize pretty quickly, actually; the workshop in Yogen. He's not trapped in place where he sits, he can turn his head and shift around, but it has... the feel of a video game playable cutscene to it. He can't take actions that matter, because he's only allowed wriggle room in the gaps of events that already have been written.

Because... he can look over and see himself, from the outside, plugged into the laptop in front of him, and Inaba behind if he turns further. His arms are covered to the wrist in purple jacket-sleeves, and despite the warmth of that jacket, the hands at the end are cold. Shin’s sensitive ears turn the room into a soundscape, muffled slightly by the hair around and tickling them; the (to him) loud broken-fan whirr of Kai's laptop, the hums of the various devices around... the sound of the wind outside the windows and footsteps walking outside in the hall and the creaks and settlings of an old wooden building cooling down. If there's any noise from the other Ranger it's quiet enough for it to be written off as imagined or scribbled in as expected; they would have thought of that. He'd probably have to be practically lying on top of him to pick up anything if that.

The operating table and vending machine threaten to appear in the corners of attention because as fairly good as Shin's is this is a memory and not the kind of accurate recording it pretends to be, compressing experience and eliding detail to it's whims. The graininess of VCR itself can only pretend. Things in the distance are a little more conventionally fuzzy because it turns out Shin could use some glasses.

No thoughts appear, no inner monologue. There's conversation, if Ranger steps back and lets it happen, things quieting down as if on pause or contemplation when he doesn't, but it's all things he's heard before, with the same caveat of paraphrased accuracy. There's not even emotions but... there's the shadow of them, the physical sensations that accompany them. Like Ranger's consciousness has been installed on top of someone else's subconscious, wiping it out but leaving things like the sinking feeling of disbelieving dismay when looking at the lines of code currently on screen, the tentative springlike warmth that appears when bouncing an idea back and forth, and when looking at Ranger directly...

It's a small thin tightness, just below the diaphragm... and something firm held in place where it rose up to it.

This little VR tour doesn't last long enough for Ranger to get bored of it... there's the sound of the tape being spat out, his immersion removing itself from him and the memory fizzing before it winks out. Ranger will find himself back in himself again, in the process of walking down a familiar ruined corridor with a laptop under his arm, in full possession of his choices.

Behind him, there's the rustle of fabric against fabric betraying padding footfalls. If Shin is a sheep that’s taken on the form of a wolf, then it’s a sorry specimen, thin and rangy, exiled from the pack and unlikely to survive the winter. But it’s only the most hungry and desperate of wolves that get brave enough to attack a human, crouched in followment and holding a knife.

What, this didn't happen?]

[rearranger]

[ What is a memory to Rio Ranger? It's no different than a recording done with a camera, as perfectly preserved as it is easily loss. It would only take a small glitch, just a little bit of modification, in order for any one thing to be lost. There's a brief period in time in which there are gaps for him, seconds and minutes that are he can't process correctly, if they exist at all. But until that occurred, it's a perfectly preserved snapshot in time, so unlike the fuzzy and fleeting and ever changing memories of humans.

Human memories are more akin to a body of water. They mix and meld together, rises and falls with the currents, never quite staying the same. The sound of tape winding back, the graininess and small imperfections (though perhaps some of those are intentional, as the subconscious is a funny thing,) but it's enough to verify where he is. This, he supposes, must be what it's like for Shin - a world that's a little blurry in spot, a memory that's not quite perfect, a cool feeling and the touch of fingertips on keys.

It's a familiar conversation, just different enough to distinguish it as a memory, and he allows it to transpire for lack of other options. It's strange to view himself through the lens of another, to be given just the faintest hint of their thoughts - the bewilderment and even disgust of seeing what should be a perfect code gutted and twisted in a few key places, the start of a bright idea and the promise of success, all such things that accompany a project, and something else that he can't quite assign an emotion to - an uncomfortable tightness that has gripped him before.

It's not everything, but it's enough to nonplus him. It's enough for it to seem wrong. But it's there and gone, and he has little time to linger on the questions that rise up with it before it changes, and just like that they're both back in that place.

He walks along with a familiar laptop tucked under his arm, and it isn't all that difficult to snap a scenario together in his mind. It's Kai's laptop, the one that Miley had allowed them to have, taken from them by one of the three that oversee the third floor. In truth, he hadn't wanted them to have it. It was a questionable decision, and it was enough to make one wonder if perhaps she was beginning to forget where her loyalty lies.

There's that shift, there's a scene that had never played out but could have, and he's aware of the sounds behind him. His head twitches, starting to look back before he catches himself, instead looking out of the corner of his eye. The sound is more than enough for him to guess at the situation, how quickly he might need to move, and he finds this to be far more comfortable than the previous scene. It's familiar, it's safe, and it's how it should be. So he continues along, playing his role perfectly. ]

[notsosou]

[It plays out, almost at a remove, like a nature documentary. Shin stalks as quietly as the speed required to catch up allows, mouth dry. There's no warning for when he pounces forwards, because who knows when some building internal mechanism will tip, sending a rush of mechanism-moving water through the system, galvanizing forwards as the blade is sent towards Ranger's-

neck?

a flicker, a skip, a scratch -

arm. The one holding the laptop. That's the real prize here. If he just lets go of it...]

[rearranger]

Too slow.

[ This is the facility he lives in, one in which countless simulations have been run. He knows what this laptop is, he knows who left it for them, a questionable move that had him wondering, and so it's easy enough for him to simply pivot out of the way of the oncoming assault.

Is it a good attempt? Not really, because a good attempt would have not been losing such an important item to begin with. ]

[notsosou]

[There's... a sensation of subtle shift, somewhere... a call and response, pinged radar in the depths Ranger is sinking into.]

Ugh... G-give it back!

[He's panting already, coughing. Shin has to be opportunistic by default, because he can't afford to expend too much energy before it starts presenting it's bill.]

There's no rule against having it!

[He's making a second dash on the last word, trying to use what sparse element of surprise that offers; a quick dart forward, he's nimble... but he's also flesh, and it suffers in accuracy from already being spent.]

[rearranger]

Huuh? I just dodged. Super weak~

[ It's easy to remember how to play the role, to fall back into the same old routine, and the laptop comes up to block the knife now. There's a sharp crack, and fragmented bits chip off and fall to the floor. Laptops are particularly delicate pieces of equipment, and it will likely be unusable after that.

His stare stays fixed on Shin, cold and calculating. He wants to survive at any cost. He wants to win at any cost, even now, and the thought of how nice it would be to bash his head in using the object in his hands occurs to him presently. ]

Hmm...? You're not allowed to take objects from the previous floors with you, ahaha! Smuggling stuff is cheating~ Noooo idea why Miley was being so soft on you!

[ Was she on their side? Ranger isn't sure, but it hardly matters now, his role in the game is finished. This is nothing more than a memory.

Even if he dreams of it, the reality is that it's unlikely that he'll see her again.

Then, flatly: ]

You might as well give it up.