{ 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

[mapsio]

I’m not sure anyone cares more than my father.

[ It really is more annoying than anything else. She sighs. Walking alongside Cloud. ]

It took a while, really. She’s gentle, and firm when she needs to be. It’s expected of ladies like us to know when to put our walls up and when to be ourselves.

[She blushes, Cloud never misses a beat, does he?! ]

No dates, yet…we’re working up to it!

[identitycrisiscore]

You'd think he'd figure out by now you're your own woman. That's what you're thinking, right? [ He snorts, softly. ] Trust me, I get it. Independence is addictive. Once you've gotten a taste of it, it's hard to want to go back. [ He says it with fondness and, well, why shouldn't he? He's always hopping on Zachariah to go fetch this, that, or the other thing from outside town. In many ways Cloud marches to the beat of his own drum. ]

[ ...That said, he does scratch his head and look away a bit as she talks about Juri. Again, the smile unbidden creeps up to his lips. Gentle, and firm when she needs to be, huh? Certainly sounds like someone Cloud count mention... ]

... Take it at your own pace. Not like I'm doing much better than you are in that regard. [ He gives a sheepish half-smile. ] Would be kind of embarrassing to push you to go faster than you're comfortable with when I'm taking the slow path, myself.

[mapsio]

It’s what I’m thinking, of course. How could I not? My father just wants as much control as he can get.

[Haru has so many solutions in mind, most of them pretty rash in the big scheme of things.

She’s glad she has Cloud to talk to about this right now. She’s not sure she would have thought to tell him. It’s hard to know who she can trust.]

The slow path isn’t too bad, is it? I’d had half a mind to jump to desperate measures. Seeing my situation is growing more and more complicated. But now that I say it out loud…the more I realize how silly it is.

[identitycrisiscore]

Yeah, the slow path isn't all that bad. [ He tries to keep a small smile off his face, but nothing doing. Talking about this with Haru is a surprise, but it's honestly refreshing — he doesn't really get many opportunities to actually talk about, well, his current love life. And she's a good listener all on her own. ] Stop to smell the roses while you can, and all that.

You'll know when to take that jump, I bet — not saying you'll get to take the slow path forever. I don't think anyone does, but... you probably have more time than you think. Hard to see that when you're still in school.

[ I mean, look at him, 21 and taking life slow. Nice and steady and uncomplicated. ]

Besides, it's not like your dad is trying to puppet you around or anything, right? Not gonna say it isn't rough, but if he's not doing that it hasn't come to a breaking point — yet.

[ Is it a little cynical for Cloud to assume it will? Probably a little, but if there's one thing that changes life paths, it's romance. That much he can confirm. ]

[mapsio]

I like how you make it sound so simple. I wish it could always be that simple. "Stop to smell the roses", yet somehow I feel like I should rush into things when I don't really want to.

Believe me, this whole secret thing has been..interesting.

[ She doesn't want to confirm his worst fears, but. ]

My Father is trying to see me engaged to one of his business partner's sons. Every day it seems more likely that it will come to pass.

[ HARU REALLY IS IN A TOUGH SPOT. ]

[identitycrisiscore]

Already? Seriously?

[ Cloud stops for a second, more than a little dumbfounded. Guess this is just what high society had to deal with, but Haru was younger than him. Arranging a marriage before she's even out of school... ]

...What an asshole. No offense. [ He's not going to mince his words in this case. ] I didn't realize things were that bad.

I can see why you seem pressed for time, then. I don't suppose talking to him about this has worked out any — or you wouldn't be doing this in the first place.

[ He's trying to come up with a solution now. Unfortunately, family dynamics are something he doesn't have... well, the strongest grasp of. Let alone high society family dynamics. ]