{ event 7 } A▒ E█SI▓Y ░▒▓25░9.▒░█

[expiationmods]

IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY

March 11. The sun is shining, streaming in perfect sunbeams through uncovered windows. Birds and animals twitter outside, basking in trees that are verdant green and full of life. Outside, the town begins to wake, stirring to life with the sounds of ordinary everyday happenings. Footsteps, carts rolling down the road, the distant sound of friendly neighbors greeting each other.

And you–you have lived here your whole life. Or maybe you’re a visitor to this fine town. Either way, you’re a neighbor here, too.

Aldrip is having another beautiful day.

i. OUR TOWN

The town square is a bustling place to be for locals, and this week is no exception. Aldrip is a vibrant swell of activity: stores, stalls, and stands all open their doors precisely on time, welcoming the new day. Things are quiet, theoretically, while the local school is in session, but anyone playing hooky won’t get a second glance. Everything is fine! It’s too nice a day to be inside, anyway.

(Just like all the other days before, all too nice to waste.)

That being said, Aldrip is not without its own brand of nuisance. Fairies are rarely seen in town, these days, but this week, they seem to be in fine form. They can be found playing harmless tricks on people: taking things from them and moving them somewhere else, rolling carts when no one is holding onto them, mostly-unscrewing screws that hold together mechanical parts… They avoid magical pranks, for now, but these mundane tricks are such a nuisance! They even pull all of the wares out of a local vendor’s stall: dozens and dozens of colorful, patterned scarves. They had been on “deep discount,” leftovers from some “Day of Devotion” event, but the discount is about to get even deeper, on account of how dirty they are.

ii. TEMPTING FATE

A recent expedition to the Lorentia Caves uncovered a hidden gem–literally. Enterprising rock enthusiasts have brought back wheelbarrows full of round geodes, and have made a game out of cracking them open. Geodes that are green inside will get a lavish prize: a stay at a local spa or a gift card to a fancy restaurant. Purple or red inside will get a free drink at the local coffee shop, or a small gift card to use at a local shop. Brown or clear gems get nothing special–but you get to keep the rocks! They hold no special properties, but can be nice to look at and make great paper weights, and some of them almost seem to

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…

ERROR: MULTIPLE REDUNDANCIES DETECTED
RECALIBRATING
LOADING UPDATES...
PLEASE WAIT

Occasionally, very occasionally, breaking open one of these rocks causes it to crumble, becoming little more than gray ash. Static pops across the surface before it disintegrates.

ERROR: DATA CORRUPTED
PURGING CONTENT

Those who have found these ashen geodes will find that memories of them disappear just as soon as they turn away from what they’ve just seen.

.̸.̷.̵.̴.̷.̸.̸.̶.̴.̴.̸.̷.̵.̵.̷

…

Anyway.

No one quite knows where the pop-up casino came from, but it’s doing a bustling business at night. Now, this establishment is small, nowhere near the size of the one in the past, and is not nearly as expansive. Nonetheless, it helps create a thriving nightlife in town: there’s games, drinking, dancing, and all sorts of fun. Locals are encouraged to participate either by attending or working, or even performing in some way!

It’s a beautiful day in Aldrip. Just like yesterday. Just like tomorrow. Just like every day s̴h̵o̸u̶l̵d̸ ̶b̸e̵.

iii. LOST AND FOUND

You wake in a maze surrounded by fog. You have no memory of entering the maze. You have no idea which direction you might have come from. You are simply here, and there seems to be no exit above. So. The only way is forward.

You may be alone, or have company. Either way, aside from you and any other characters you may find, the maze seems empty. Without end. Without purpose.

Whatever twists and turns you take, all will eventually find themselves in the center, in their own time. There is nothing here, either, except for an overwhelming sense of aloneness. There is nothing here. There is nothing there.

There is nothing–

ERROR: REDUNDANT PROCESS FOUND
PURGING CONTENT

...

You wake up.

It’s another beautiful day in Aldrip.

Like all the days before and all the days after, your morning proceeds apace. You start your morning, you say hello to friends and neighbors. You…

… you find something unusual in an area you frequent. An item. It’s small, and somehow, it’s something you think you should know. Some will feel compelled to pick these items up. Some will feel a deep sense of unease when looking at them, and refuse to interact. Turning your back on these items will cause them to disappear. You won’t have to worry about that anymore. Not on this beautiful day.

Picking up the items causes a rush of information to flood your mind. Something like a memory plays in your head: the person in this memory looks and sounds like you. But…you don’t remember living that life, or doing those things. So how does it feel so real?

Throughout the rest of the event, these items will continue appearing. Characters are free to interact with them or ignore them as you see fit. Regaining more memories means they may regain their powers, as well, though whether they remember how to control them is another story.

These memories will feature prominently in the event poll that goes up after this, and your choice of how many memories they regain (or don’t) may have a lasting effect on your character. Not filling it out will also have an impact on them. So please make sure to fill out the poll!

iv. MISSING LINKS

As this strange memory phenomenon takes over Aldrip, other odd things begin to happen. It’s small, at first, and barely notable except that it renders Aldrip slightly less idyllic than usual. There are a few clouds in the sky. You may get caught in a passing rain shower, or maybe sleep through your alarm…

It gets worse.

The end of the month crawls ever closer, slow and steady. As it does, things begin to go missing. Small things, at first: personal possessions, the lunch left in the break room, flyers that look like maybe they were torn down in the town square. Is someone thieving? Here? In Aldrip?? You’ve never known Aldrip to have a problem with crime. Everything is so…

…

Pleasant.

Everyone becomes a suspect. It could have been your neighbor who took your wallet, or a coworker. Maybe your friend took that bracelet from the counter while you weren’t looking. But close to the end of the month, this starts getting bigger. What happened to that tree along the path you walk every day? Wasn’t there a butcher shop on the corner there? Where have all the birds gone?

ERROR: DATA LOST

Things go missing.

They keep going missing.

Why have they disappeared?

And…where have they gone?

v. THE COUNTDOWN

Sunday, March 31.

It’s raining.

It never rains like this in Aldrip.

Characters wake in the morning to anxiety twisting in the pit of their stomach, inexplicable and impossible to trace. As the day wears on, this sense of foreboding ramps up. Characters may even see significant numbers throughout the day that seem to count…down.

Twelve. Morning. How funny, to see these recurrences. Odd.

Eight. Seven. Around noon. This must be a coincidence, and yet, you cannot help but wonder if it is meaningful.

Four. Late afternoon. Wonder and curiosity are replaced by dread. Whatever is at the end of this countdown–it feels like a finality. Terrifying and unknown.

Two. Night. Those going to bed will find their sleep restless and filled with bad dreams.

UPDATES INSTALLED
RESTARTING…

One. Midnight. The clock strikes twelve, and whatever your character is doing–sleeping, waking, etc–the whole of existence seems to blink out.

(Info about what happens after this will be forthcoming in the event poll results and April’s SOTG.)

vi. WILDCARD

Go wild! We know that you all have plotted extensively for this event, so go ahead and do what you'd like with it!

♡

Comments

[everblooms]

[ before they walk in, aerith whispers to minato, "let me talk him down." because she knows showing up like this, well past dinner time, with minato in tow, clearly straight from performing at the casino...

is not what he needs to fill in the blanks, but rather, a sight that might ignite the firecracker of agitation instead. so when the door opens up and they're accosted by the sight of sha-ming playing the part of a disappointed father well, aerith only whispers, "shhh!" to the boy at her side. i'v got this, she tries to communicate with her fierce green stare. ]

That's no way to talk to my date. [ she's teasing. ] You really waited up for us? Sorry for making you so lonely, Sha-ming. But honestly, this looks delicious.

[ still enrobed in a nearly floor length white dress, she settles in next to him. did she handle? who knows. ] And I'm starved stupid!

[memori3s]

[ They make quite the pair: Aerith in her graceful dress and Minato still clad in his school uniform. He didn't have the chance to stop by home to change, not when heading home meant crossing paths with Sha-Ming. It's impossible to hide things from his brother. If he'd bumped into Sha-Ming, there's no way Minato would've been able to wiggle out of telling him his evening plans.

Which also meant it was incredibly obvious Minato's entry into the casino was an inside job. There's no way security would have let him through. Given his uniform, he wouldn't have been able to try and lie about his age.

In any event, Minato's content to let Aerith "handle" Sha-Ming. She's got a knack for Matrix dodging all his needling. At the very least, Minato thinks she's way better at it than him. And it's not like he can hear anything Sha-Ming's saying. His headphones sit on top of his ears, music drowning out everything his older brother says. He does see the merciless gaze, but instead of apologizing, Minato raises a hand in a lukewarm wave. He steps in after Aerith, taking one of the seats at the table.

He's home now. Isn't that what matters? ]

[bonobos]

[ he’s a pretty chill guy, but something about these two makes his blood pressure spike.

sha-ming shoots an incredulous raise if the brow at aerith. ]

You don’t wanna date my brother. Rumor has it he’s one hell of a heartbreaker. Can’t say that surprises me, I see a new girl hanging off his arm every month…

[ he got all the rizz in this family, it’s fine. until sha-ming lobs a roll of bread at him. ]

Hey, asshole. I’m talkin’ to you. The hell were you doing at the casino? You could’ve… I dunno, gotten kidnapped or some shit… you’ve got the survival instincts of a goldfish and that place was seedy as hell.

[ he breathes out through his nose. ]

Well, stuff yourselves. Both of you. [ a beat. ] The… performance was good, Aer. Really good.

[everblooms]

That's just because he's handsome. Aren't you, Minato? [ it's hard not to tease, sometimes. aerith is still beaming, eyes glimmering with a sort of unnecessary pride. ]

Any trouble he could have gotten into could have been handled. But he was a perfect little angel the whole time, if you'd like to know. [ was he actually? it's hard to tell. it's not like aerith actually tailed him the whole time, but he was far less likely to gamble than other teens she knows. it's as she's tucking into the meal that sha-ming speaks again, pausing as she works her utensils to smile up at him, more than a few shades embarrassed. she has no time to feel bad about a potential little white lie when they're all here, gathered around a nice meal. ]

This is nice.

[memori3s]

[ The bread roll bounces off Minato's forehead and lands on the plate in front of him. ]

Ow.

[ He reaches up to slide the headphones off his ears. They hang around his neck, faint music still coming through them. Minato offers Sha-Ming a small shrug before taking the bread roll in hand and tearing it in half. Though he hadn't been able to hear his brother, he's adept at reading others' lips. ]

I wanted to see Aerith too.

[ It's not fair that Sha-Ming's the only one who gets to attend her performances. And it's not like it was the first time he's snuck into the casino. It's happened several times in the past, and he's still alive now so... it's fine, right?

He nibbles thoughtfully on the piece of bread as Aerith reports he definitely behaved himself. He did, technically. He helped the bartender out with others' orders, but Sha-Ming doesn't need to know that. ...he does smell a little like alcohol though, given that all the drinks' smells had rubbed off on him too.

Minato reaches for some of the meat to avoid saying anything else. There's a content expression on his face though, and those who know him well would be able to tell he's happy tonight as well. ]