{ 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

[fieldtrip]

[ Hearing her flat tone, Toph actually feels a little bad. Just a little. She wishes Ethlyn would give it up, but at the same time, if she ever did then she would maybe be kinda sad about it. It's hard to refute how obvious it is that Ethlyn cares about her.

Toph just wishes she respected her as well as she cared about her. ]

I don't mind pickled things, [ she relents, reaching out to take the basket without a trace of her usual fumbling. ] ... Thanks.

[ Then she just stands there awkwardly, hoping she'll leave. ]

[baldrshand]

You're welcome. Eggs, cucumber, and artichoke hearts. There's some bread and clean napkins in there too.

[Ethlyn raises her eyebrows at how assuredly Toph takes hold of the basket, as though she knew exactly where it was and how much it would weigh in her hands. That's different. It could just be a one-off, but it's also a second odd thing about her today.]

I hope I'm not intruding on anything... you did look as though you might be waiting for something.

[is it one of those Wayward Youths™ that hang around town because if it is Ethlyn is, in fact, definitely going to stick around.]

[fieldtrip]

[ The overt reminder that Ethlyn came here just to be nice, if condescendingly nice, makes Toph feel uncomfortable, simultaneously annoyed and guilty. It reminds her of how she feels about her mom, which she doesn't like.

But Ethlyn's not her mom. Toph's never had the courage to be rude to her own mother, for one thing. So, reluctantly, she persuades herself not to treat her like she is. Not that she'll be totally forthcoming, of course. ]

... I'm not waiting, I'm practicing. I'm learning how to get around by listening.

[baldrshand]

Oh! Are you really?

[That does explain why Toph seems different today. And it's definitely a relief that she's not waiting to meet up with some kind of partner-in-crime.]

I guess I can't quite fault a forest as a place to practice that. There are plenty of sounds to hear, but it's less hectic than the town square.

[fieldtrip]

[ Toph's immediately frustrated again by the implication that Ethlyn's casting judgment on what she's doing. On top of which, practicing this makes her feel vulnerable, not physically but emotionally. It's just too important to her, and too new, to feel like she can fail at it in front of someone she isn't close to. ]

I wasn't asking for your approval, okay? [ she snaps. ] I live here -- of course I'm going to practice here.

[baldrshand]

All right, all right. [Instinctively, Ethlyn holds her hands up placatingly before she remembers that placating visual gestures are not much use.] I'm just trying to talk to you, not insult your pride.

[Ugh. It's so difficult to talk to Toph. And Ethlyn understands pride, and hating pity.]

...I know how old it gets when all people do is feel bad for you.

[fieldtrip]

[ This response has the intended effect of making Toph simmer down, though she folds her arms and turns her face away. It's not like she's about to make eye contact, anyway. ]

... You don't need anyone to feel bad for you, and neither do I. If you want to help me, fine, but I don't need it.

[ The distinction is incredibly important to Toph, who indeed has a considerable depth to her pride. ]

[baldrshand]

[At least Toph being blind means that Ethlyn gets to indulge in an urge that she knows is very adolescent herself: rolling her eyes. If stubbornness was electricity, Aldrip would be lit up all day and night just from this girl.]

Fine. It's just me being the town busybody, if you can't keep me out of your business, it's not because of any failing on your part.

[...god, she knows that if she tries to say this next thing, she might get shouted out of the forest and perhaps into a forest on a different isle, but... surely... there is some kind of tactful way to say this....]

...And if you want to grow up to be one of the hunters or the mercenaries who like to live rough, that's your prerogative [it's nooot, you're the daughter of a respectable family in town, but just for the sake of argument] but... you still have a few years before you could be considered old enough to really make that choice. Regardless of anything else.